Quenching of light hadrons at RHIC in a collisional energy loss scenario

TL;DR

This paper investigates how collisional energy loss affects the suppression of light hadrons at RHIC, emphasizing that elastic processes dominate in the measured transverse momentum range.

Contribution

It demonstrates that elastic collisions are the primary mechanism for partonic energy loss in the studied energy domain at RHIC.

Findings

Elastic processes dominate partonic energy loss at RHIC.

Collisional energy loss significantly impacts nuclear suppression factors.

Elastic energy loss explains observed hadron suppression patterns.

Abstract

We evaluate the nuclear suppression factor, $R_{AA}(p_T)$ for light hadrons by taking into account the collisional energy loss. We show that in the measured $p_T$ domain of RHIC the elastic process is the dominant mechanism for the partonic energy loss.