Azimuthal correlations of jet-induced high-p(T) charged hadron pairs are studied at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at root s(NN)=200 GeV. The distribution of jet-associated partner hadrons (1.0 < ...p(T)< 2.5 GeV/c) per trigger hadron (2.5 < p(T)< 4.0 GeV/c) is found to vary with collision centrality, in both shape and yield, indicating a significant effect of the nuclear collision medium on the jet fragmentation process.
The anisotropy parameter (v(2)), the second harmonic of the azimuthal particle distribution, has been measured with the PHENIX detector in Au+Au collisions at roots(NN)=200 GeV for identified and ...inclusive charged particle production at central rapidities (eta<0.35) with respect to the reaction plane defined at high rapidities (eta=3-4 ). We observe that the v(2) of mesons falls below that of (anti)baryons for p(T)>2 GeV/c, in marked contrast to the predictions of a hydrodynamical model. A quark-coalescence model is also investigated.
The PHENIX experiment has measured midrapidity transverse momentum spectra (0.4<p(T)<4.0 GeV/c) of single electrons as a function of centrality in Au+Au collisions at roots(NN) = 200 GeV. ...Contributions from photon conversions and Dalitz decays of light neutral mesons are measured by introducing a thin (1.7% X-0) converter into the PHENIX acceptance and are statistically removed. The subtracted nonphotonic electron spectra are primarily due to the semileptonic decays of hadrons containing heavy quarks, mainly charm at lower p(T). For all centralities, the charm production cross section is found to scale with the nuclear overlap function, T-AA. For minimum-bias collisions the charm cross section per binary collision is N-c (c) over bar/T-AA=622+/-57(stat)+/-160(syst) mub.
Transverse momentum spectra of neutral pions in the range 1<p(T)<10 GeV/c have been measured at midrapidity by the PHENIX experiment at BNL RHIC in Au+Au collisions at roots(NN)=200 GeV. The pi(0) ...multiplicity in central reactions is significantly below the yields measured at the same roots(NN) in peripheral Au+Au and p+p reactions scaled by the number of nucleon-nucleon collisions. For the most central bin, the suppression factor is similar to2.5 at p(T)=2 GeV/c and increases to similar to4-5 at p(T)approximate to4 GeV/c. At larger p(T), the suppression remains constant within errors. The deficit is already apparent in semiperipheral reactions and increases smoothly with centrality.
Transverse momentum spectra for charged hadrons and for neutral pions in the range 1 Gev/c < P-T < 5 GeV/c have been measured by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC in Au + Au collisions at rootS(NN) = 130 ...GeV. At high p(T) the spectra from peripheral nuclear collisions are consistent with scaling the spectra from p + p collisions by the average number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. The spectra from central collisions are significantly suppressed when compared to the binary-scaled p + p expectation, and also when compared to similarly binary-scaled peripheral collisions, indicating a novel nuclear-medium effect in central nuclear collisions at RHIC energies.
The dependence of transverse momentum spectra of neutral pions and eta mesons with p(T) < 16 GeV/c and p(T) < 12 GeV/c, respectively, on the centrality of the collision has been measured at ...midrapidity by the PHENIX experiment at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in d + Au collisions at root s(NN) = 200 GeV. The measured yields are compared to those in p + p collisions at the same root s(NN) scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon collisions in d + Au. At all centralities, the yield ratios show no suppression, in contrast to the strong suppression seen for central An + Au collisions at RHIC. Only a weak p(T) and centrality dependence can be observed.
The invariant differential cross section for inclusive neutral-pion production in p+p collisions at roots=200 GeV has been measured at midrapidity (eta<0.35) over the range 1<p(T)less than or similar ...to14 GeV/c by the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Predictions of next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations are consistent with these measurements. The precision of our result is sufficient to differentiate between prevailing gluon-to-pion fragmentation functions.
Cross sections for midrapidity production of direct photons in p+p collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are reported for transverse momenta of 3 < p(T)< 16 GeV/c. Next-to-leading ...order perturbative QCD (pQCD) describes the data well for p(T)> 5 GeV/c, where the uncertainties of the measurement and theory are comparable. We also report on the effect of requiring the photons to be isolated from parton jet energy. The observed fraction of isolated photons is well described by pQCD for p(T)> 7 GeV/c.
Differential elliptic flow (v(2)) for phi mesons and (anti)deuterons ((d) over bar )d is measured for Au + Au collisions at root s(NN) = 200 GeV. The v(2) for phi mesons follows the trend of lighter ...pi(+/-) and K-+/- mesons, suggesting that ordinary hadrons interacting with standard hadronic cross sections are not the primary driver for elliptic flow development. The v(2) values for ((d) over bar )d suggest that elliptic flow is additive for composite particles. This further validation of the universal scaling of v(2) per constituent quark for baryons and mesons suggests that partonic collectivity dominates the transverse expansion dynamics.