Results from PHENIX at RHIC with Implications for LHC

TL;DR

This paper reviews results from the PHENIX experiment at RHIC, discussing phenomena like jet quenching, quark suppression, and collective flow in high-energy nuclear collisions, with implications for LHC physics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of RHIC findings using advanced particle correlation techniques, linking them to potential LHC observations.

Findings

Observation of jet quenching in dense medium

Evidence of $J/$ suppression in A+A collisions

Insights into heavy quark suppression and collective flow

Abstract

This article is based on my Proceedings for the 47th Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics on the Most Unexpected at LHC and the Status of High Energy Frontier, Erice, Sicily, Italy, 2009. Results from the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in nucleus-nucleus and proton-proton collisions at c.m. energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV are presented in the context of the methods of single and two-particle inclusive reactions which were used in the discovery of hard-scattering in p-p collisions at the CERN ISR in the 1970's. These techniques are used at RHIC in A+A collisions because of the huge combinatoric background from the large particle multiplicity. Topics include $J/\Psi$ suppression, jet quenching in the dense medium (sQGP) as observed with $\pi^0$ at large transverse momentum, thermal photons, collective flow, two-particle correlations, suppression of heavy quarks at large $p_T$ and its possible relation to Higgs searches at the LHC. The differences and similarities of the measurements in p-p and A+A collisions are presented. The two discussion sessions which followed the lectures on which this article is based are included at the end.