Parton fragment yields derived from minimum-bias jet angular correlations

Abstract

Spectrum hard components from 200 GeV \auau collisions are accurately described by pQCD parton fragment distributions, indicating that a substantial population of parton fragments is present in hadron spectra at low $p_t$. Minimum-bias angular correlations contain jet-like correlation structure with most-probable hadron momentum 1 GeV/c. In this study we convert minimum-bias jet-like angular correlations to single-particle yields and compare them with spectrum hard components. We find that jet-like correlations in central 200 GeV \auau collisions correspond quantitatively to pQCD predictions, and the jet-correlated hadron yield comprises one third of the final state.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure