Quenching of high p⊥ hadron spectra by hadronic interactions in heavy ion collisions at relativistic energies -: art. no. 044905

Typically, the materialization of highly energetic transverse partons to hadronic jets is assumed to occur outside the reaction zone in a relativistic heavy ion collision. In contrast, a quantum mechanical estimate yields a time on the order of only a few fm/c for building up the hadronic wave function for jets with typical transverse momenta of p(perpendicular to)less than or equal to10 GeV, as accessible at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) facilities. The role of possible elastic or inelastic collisions of these high p(perpendicular to) particles with the bulk of hadrons inside the fireball is addressed by means of an opacity expansion in the number of collisions. This analysis shows that the hadronic final state interactions can, in principle, account for the modification of the (moderate) high p(perpendicular to) spectrum observed for central collisions at RHIC.