Critical examination of RHIC paradigms-mostly high pT

TL;DR

This paper critically examines RHIC paradigms, focusing on high pT physics, the search for a critical point, and the understanding of radiative processes, challenging existing assumptions and reviewing historical and recent experimental techniques.

Contribution

It provides a critical analysis of RHIC paradigms, questioning established views on high pT physics and the interpretation of experimental results in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

Challenges existing paradigms in soft and hard physics at RHIC.

Highlights gaps in understanding of radiative processes in QCD medium.

Reviews historical development of high pT measurements and their implications.

Abstract

A critical examination of RHIC paradigms is presented. Topics include: search for a critical point with a low energy scan; the lack of understanding of radiative processes in a medium in QCD compared in detail to examples from QED; the reason why some physicists started to measure particles at large pT in the 1960's; a review of the discovery of hard-scattering in p-p collisions in the 1970's via single-inclusive and two-particle correlations and application of these techniques at RHIC. Several paradigms in both soft and hard physics which are popular at RHIC are discussed and challenged.