Evidence from d+Au measurements for final-state suppression of high-p(T) hadrons in Au+Au collisions at RHIC

Phys Rev Lett. 2003 Aug 15;91(7):072304. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.072304. Epub 2003 Aug 15.

Abstract

We report measurements of single-particle inclusive spectra and two-particle azimuthal distributions of charged hadrons at high transverse momentum (high p(T)) in minimum bias and central d+Au collisions at sqrt[s(NN)]=200 GeV. The inclusive yield is enhanced in d+Au collisions relative to binary-scaled p+p collisions, while the two-particle azimuthal distributions are very similar to those observed in p+p collisions. These results demonstrate that the strong suppression of the inclusive yield and back-to-back correlations at high p(T) previously observed in central Au+Au collisions are due to final-state interactions with the dense medium generated in such collisions.