Jet quenching: RHIC results and phenomenology

Abstract

I review the main experimental results on jet physics in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions as studied via inclusive leading hadron spectra and di-hadron correlations at high transverse momentum. In central Au+Au at RHIC (sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV), the observed large suppression of high-$p_T$ hadron spectra as well as the strongly modified azimuthal dijet correlations compared to baseline p+p results in free space, provide crucial information on the thermodynamical and transport properties of QCD matter.

Comments: Talk at the International Workshop on Quantum Chromodynamics: QCD@Work 2005, Conversano, Bari, Italy, 16-20 Jun 2005. To appear in AIP Conf. Proceeds