Minijets and their consequences for collisions of heavy nuclei

The UA1 data for minijets are used to estimate minijet production in nucleus-nucleus collisions at collider energies. The average number anti N of minijets and the average transverse energy anti ET that they carry off are expected to be proportional to A4/3. For minijets with pT>pTMIN at √sNN=200 GeV, anti N is proportional to p-4TMIN and anti ET to p-3TMIN. For UU collisions at RHIC, anti N≅100 and anti ET≅350 GeV. The minijet will produce features in the final state similar to those expected from a thermalised quark-gluon plasma (increases in multiplicity and of the hadrons, and of strangeness and charm), and will themselves contribute to the formation of such a plasma. (orig.)