Abstract
PHENIX has measured the centrality dependence of midrapidity pion, kaon, and proton transverse momentum distributions in and collisions at GeV. The data provide a reference for nuclear effects in and previously measured collisions. Hadron production is enhanced in , relative to independent nucleon-nucleon scattering, as was observed in lower energy collisions. The nuclear modification factor for (anti)protons is larger than that for pions. The difference increases with centrality but is not sufficient to account for the abundance of baryon production observed in central collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The centrality dependence in shows that the nuclear modification factor increases gradually with the number of collisions encountered by each participant nucleon. We also present comparisons with lower energy data as well as with parton recombination and other theoretical models of nuclear effects on particle production.
11 More- Received 8 March 2006
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.74.024904
©2006 American Physical Society