Collisional Energy Loss of a Fast Parton in a QGP

Abstract

The suppression of hadron p_T spectra in high energy central heavy-ion collisions compared to proton-proton collisions, referred to as 'jet-quenching', is currently attributed to partonic energy loss in the hot medium created in the collision. The RHIC experiments show that at large enough p_T, hadron quenching is strong, and of similar magnitude for light and heavy flavours. This point is difficult to understand in a parton energy loss scenario, where the energy loss is believed to be dominantly radiative, and quantitatively different for light partons and heavy quarks: gluon radiation off a heavy quark is suppressed at small angles - within the so-called dead cone - and a heavy quark suffers less radiative energy loss than a light parton. In this context it is important to reconsider the collisional contribution to partonic energy loss. Although it seems difficult to see how collisional losses could substantially increase heavy flavour quenching without simultaneously increasing light hadron quenching, it is theoretically important to establish correct results for the heavy quark collisional energy loss.