Jet Quenching from soft QCD Scattering in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Abstract

We show that partons traversing a quark-gluon plasma can lose substantial amounts of energy also by scatterings, and not only through medium-induced radiation as mainly considered previously. Results from Monte Carlo simulations of soft interactions of partons, emerging from a hard scattering, through multiple elastic scatterings on gluons in an expanding relativistic plasma show a sizeable jet quenching which can account for a substantial part of the effect observed in RHIC data.

Comments: accepted for publication in Physics Letters B