High $p_T$ Azimuthal Asymmetry in Non-central A+A at RHIC

Abstract

The high $p_{\rm T}>3$ GeV azimuthal asymmetry, $v_2(p_{\rm T})$, in non-central nuclear collisions at RHIC is shown to be a sensitive measure of the initial parton density distribution of the produced quark-gluon plasma. A generalization of the Gyulassy-Levai-Vitev (GLV) non-abelian energy loss formalism including Bjorken 1+1D expansion as well as important kinematic constraints is used.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex, bbox.sty, 4 eps figures, references added, minor corrections, Phys.Rev.Lett versio