Jet Quenching at RHIC

Abstract

We present high transverse momentum ($p_T$) measurements made at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) for Au+Au, d+Au, and p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV, as well as for Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 62$ GeV. We observe a suppression in the yield of high $p_T$ hadrons measured in central Au+Au collisions, relative to the yield in p+p collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. This observation, together with the absence of such a suppression in d+Au collisions, leads to the conclusion that a dense medium is formed in central Au+Au collisions.

Invited talk at the XXIV Physics in Collisions Conference (PIC04), Boston, USA, June 2004, 14 pages, LaTeX, 7 eps figures. PSN MONT07