High- pT charged hadron suppression in Au+Au collisions at √(sNN)=200 GeV

The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has measured charged hadron yields at midrapidity over a wide range of transverse momenta (0.5<pT<10 GeV/c) in Au+Au collisions at √(sNN)=200 GeV. The data are compared to π0 measurements from the same experiment. For both charged hadrons and neutral pions, the yields per nucleon-nucleon collision are significantly suppressed in central compared to peripheral and nucleon-nucleon collisions. The suppression sets in gradually and increases with increasing centrality of the collisions. Above 4-5 GeV/c in pT, a constant and almost identical suppression of charged hadrons and π0's is observed. The pT spectra are compared to published spectra from Au+Au at √(sNN)=130 in terms of xT scaling. Central and peripheral π0 as well as peripheral charged spectra exhibit the same xT scaling as observed in p+p data