Studies of nucleon-gold collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon pair using tagged d+Au interactions

The spectra of charged hadrons produced near mid-rapidity in d+Au, p+Au and n+Au collisions at - = 200 GeV are presented as a function of transverse momentum and centrality. These measurements were performed using the PHOBOS detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Nucleon-nucleus interactions were extracted from the d+Au data by identifying the deuteron spectators. The deuteron spectators were measured using two calorimeters; one that detected forward-going single neutrons and a newly installed calorimeter that detected forward-going single protons. The large suppression of high-pr hadron production in central Au+Au interactions relative to a naive superposition of p+p collisions has been interpreted as evidence of partonic energy loss in a dense medium. This interpretation is founded upon the absence of such suppression in the yield of d+Au collisions. The validity of using d+Au interactions in place of a nucleon-nucleus reference is tested. It is shown that hadron production in d+Au agrees with a simple binary collision scaling of hadron production in p+Au. An ideal reference for Au+Au collisions is constructed using a weighted combination of p+Au and n+Au yields and is found to be similar to the d+Au reference.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Reed, Corey (Corey James)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• George S.F. Stephans and Wit Busza.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39484

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39484