Suppression of hadrons with large transverse momentum in central Au+Au collisions at √s_NN = 130GeV

Abstract

Transverse momentum spectra for charged hadrons and for neutral pions in the range 1GeV/c<p_T<5GeV/c have been measured by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC in Au+Au collisions at √s_NN = 130GeV. 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.