Centrality dependence of the high pT charged hadron suppression in Au + Au collisions at √sNN = 130 GeV

PHENIX has measured the centralitydependence of charged hadron p(T) spectra from Au +An collisionsat root(s)NN = 130 GeV The truncated meanp(T) decreases with centralityfor p(T) > 2 GeV/c, indicating an apparent reduction of the contribution from hard scattering to high p(T) hadrdn production. For central collisionsthe yield at high p(T) is shown to be suppressed compared to binary nucleon-nucleon collisionscaling of p + p, data. This suppression is monotonically increasing with centrality, but most of the change occurs below 30% centrality, i.e., for collisionswith less than similar to140 participating nucleons. The observed p(T) and centralitydependence is consistent with the particle production predicted by models including hard scattering and subsequent energy loss of the scattered partons in the dense matter created in the collisions. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.