Characteristics of Parton Energy Loss Studied with High-p_T Particle Spectra from PHENIX

TL;DR

This paper investigates how high-energy quarks and gluons lose energy in a dense medium created in heavy-ion collisions, using particle spectra measurements from RHIC to test jet quenching models.

Contribution

It provides new experimental data on particle suppression in different nuclei and energies, supporting parton energy loss models in describing the medium's properties.

Findings

Consistent with parton energy loss scenario

Supports jet quenching models for medium characterization

Provides data across different nuclei and energies

Abstract

In the first three years of the physics program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) a picture was established in which the suppression of hadrons at high transverse momenta (p_T) in central Au+Au collisions is explained by energy loss of quark and gluon jets in a medium of high color-charge density. Measurements of single particle spectra for a smaller nucleus (Cu), for different center-of-mass energies and with higher statistics were performed in the subsequent years and are used to test predictions and assumptions of jet quenching models in more detail. The measurements presented here are consistent with a parton energy loss scenario so that these models can be used to relate the observed suppression to properties of the created medium.