High- p_{T} charged hadron suppression in Au+Au collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200GeV

Abstract

The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has measured charged hadron yields at midrapidity over a wide range of transverse momenta $(0.5<{p}_{T}<10\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{GeV}∕c)$ in $\text{Au}+\text{Au}$ collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{NN}}=200\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{GeV}$. The data are compared to ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$ measurements from the same experiment. For both charged hadrons and neutral pions, the yields per nucleon-nucleon collision are significantly suppressed in central compared to peripheral and nucleon-nucleon collisions. The suppression sets in gradually and increases with increasing centrality of the collisions. Above $4--5\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{GeV}∕c$ in ${p}_{T}$, a constant and almost identical suppression of charged hadrons and ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$'s is observed. The ${p}_{T}$ spectra are compared to published spectra from $\text{Au}+\text{Au}$ at $\sqrt{{s}_{NN}}=130$ in terms of ${x}_{T}$ scaling. Central and peripheral ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$ as well as peripheral charged spectra exhibit the same ${x}_{T}$ scaling as observed in $p+p$ data.