Retardation Effect for Collisional Energy Loss of Hard Partons Produced in a QGP

Abstract

We study the collisional energy loss suffered by an energetic parton travelling the distance L in a high temperature quark-gluon plasma and initially produced in the medium. We find that the medium-induced collisional loss -Delta E(L) is strongly suppressed compared to previous estimates which assumed the collisional energy loss rate -dE/dx to be constant. The large L linear asymptotic behaviour of -Delta E(L) sets in only after a quite large retardation time. The suppression of -Delta E(L) is partly due to the fact that gluon bremsstrahlung arising from the initial acceleration of the energetic parton is reduced in the medium compared to vacuum. The latter radiation spectrum is sensitive to the plasmon modes of the quark-gluon plasma and has a rich angular structure.

19 pages, 4 figures. Substantial changes have been made in version 2, especially in section 3. In particular, in section 3.2 the dependence on a spurious ultraviolet cut-off has been removed. As a consequence numerical results are quantitatively modified, but the retardation effect is qualitatively unchanged. The physical origin of the largeness of the retardation time is also emphasized, and two Appendices have been added