Heavy Quark Radiative Energy Loss - Applications to RHIC

Abstract

Heavy quark energy loss in a hot QCD plasma is computed taking into account the competing effects due to suppression of zeroth order gluon radiation bellow the plasma frequency and the enhancement of gluon radiation due to transition energy loss and medium induced Bremsstrahlung. Heavy quark medium induced radiative energy loss is derived to all orders in opacity, $(L/\lambda_g)^n$. Numerical evaluation of the energy loss suggest small suppression of high $p_\perp$ charm quarks, and therefore provide a possible explanation for the null effects observed by PHENIX in the prompt electron spectrum in $Au+Au$ as $\sqrt{s}=130$ and 200 AGeV.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Contributed to 17th International Conference on Ultra Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Quark Matter 2004), Oakland, California, 11-17 Jan 200