Hirano Tetsufumi, Hamagaki Hideki
Butsuri, 59(12) 862-870, Dec 5, 2004
Jet quenching is one of the promising tools to investigate a new form of matter, the quark gluon plasma, produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC. We first review the spacetime picture of heavy ion reaction and the parton energy loss in dense matter. Experimental results for high p_T hadrons such as suppression of yields, azimuthal anisotropy and disappearance of azimuthal correlations are manifestations of parton energy loss in dense matter. By comparison of these experimental results with theoretical analyses, we deduce the properties of matter produced in the early stage of collisions. We also briefly comment on a possibility of creation of another form of matter, the color glass condensate.