Suppression of Hadrons with Large Transverse Momentum in Central Au+Au Collisions at $sqrt {s sub {sub {NN}}}_ = 130 GeV

Abstract

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 $\sqrt{s_{{}_{NN}}}=130$ GeV. At high $p_T$ the spectra from peripheral nuclear collisions are consistent with the naive expectation of 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 effect in central nuclear collisions at RHIC energies.

6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, submitted to Physical Review Letters