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Radiative and Collisional Jet Energy Loss in the Quark-Gluon Plasma at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
; ; ; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T8 (Canada)
  2. Theory Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF Bidhannagar, Kolkata, 700064 (India)

We calculate and compare bremsstrahlung and collisional energy loss of hard partons traversing a quark-gluon plasma. Our treatment of both processes is complete at leading order in the coupling and accounts for the probabilistic nature of the jet energy loss. We find that the nuclear modification factor R{sub AA} for neutral {pi}{sup 0} production in heavy ion collisions is sensitive to the inclusion of collisional and radiative energy loss contributions while the averaged energy loss only slightly increases if collisional energy loss is included for parent parton energies E>>T. These results are important for the understanding of jet quenching in Au+Au collisions at 200A GeV at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Comparison with data is performed applying the energy loss calculation to a relativistic ideal (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamic description of the thermalized medium formed at RHIC.

OSTI ID:
21024784
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 100; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English