High-p(T) pi(0) production with respect to the reaction plane in Au plus Au collisions at s(NN)=200 GeV

Afanasiev S, Aidala C, Ajitanand NN, Akiba Y, Alexander J, Al-Jamel A, Aoki K, Aphecetche L, Armendariz R, Aronson SH, Averbeck R, Awes TC, Azmoun B, Babintsev V, Baldisseri A, Barish KN, Barnes PD, Bassalleck B, Bathe S, Batsouli S, Baublis V, Bauer F, Bazilevsky A, Belikov S, Bennett R, Berdnikov Y, Bjorndal MT, Boissevain JG, Borel H, Boyle K, Brooks ML, Brown DS, Bucher D, Buesching H, Bumazhnov V, Bunce G, Burward-Hoy JM, Butsyk S, Campbell S, Chai JS, Chernichenko S, Chiba J, Chi CY, Chiu M, Choi IJ, Chujo T, Cianciolo V, Cleven CR, Cobigo Y, Cole BA, Comets MP, Constantin P, Csanad M, Csorgo T, Dahms T, Das K, David G, Delagrange H, Denisov A, d'Enterria D, Deshpande A, Desmond EJ, Dietzsch O, Dion A, Drachenberg JL, Drapier O, Drees A, Dubey AK, Durum A, Dzhordzhadze V, Efremenko YV, Egdemir J, Enokizono A, En'yo H, Espagnon B, Esumi S, Fields DE, Fleuret F, Fokin SL, Forestier B, Fraenkel Z, Frantz JE, Franz A, Frawley AD, Fukao Y, Fung SY, Gadrat S, Gastineau F, Germain M, Glenn A, Gonin M, Gosset J, Goto Y, de Cassagnac RG, Grau N, Greene SV, Perdekamp MG, Gunji T, Gustafsson HA, Hachiya T, Henni AH, Haggerty JS, Hagiwara MN, Hamagaki H, Harada H, Hartouni EP, Haruna K, Harvey M, Haslum E, Hasuko K, Hayano R, Heffner M, Hemmick TK, Heuser JM, He X, Hiejima H, Hill JC, Hobbs R, Holmes M, Holzmann W, Homma K, Hong B, Horaguchi T, Hur MG, Ichihara T, Imai K, Inaba M, Isenhower D, Isenhower L, Ishihara M, Isobe T, Issah M, Isupov A, Jacak BV, Jia J, Jin J, Jinnouchi O, Johnson BM, Joo KS, Jouan D, Kajihara F, Kametani S, Kamihara N, Kaneta M, Kang JH, Kawagishi T, Kazantsev AV, Kelly S, Khanzadeev A, Kim DJ, Kim E, Kim YS, Kinney E, Kiss A, Kistenev E, Kiyomichi A, Klein-Boesing C, Kochenda L, Kochetkov V, Komkov B, Konno M, Kotchetkov D, Kozlov A, Kroon PJ, Kunde GJ, Kurihara N, Kurita K, Kweon MJ, Kwon Y, Kyle GS, Lacey R, Lajoie JG, Lebedev A, Le Bornec Y, Leckey S, Lee DM, Lee MK, Leitch MJ, Leite MAL, Lim H, Litvinenko A, Liu MX, Li XH, Maguire CF, Makdisi YI, Malakhov A, Malik MD, Manko VI, Masui H, Matathias F, McCain MC, McGaughey PL, Miake Y, Miller TE, Milov A, Mioduszewski S, Mishra GC, Mitchell JT, Morrison DP, Moss JM, Moukhanova TV, Mukhopadhyay D, Murata J, Nagamiya S, Nagata Y, Nagle JL, Naglis M, Nakamura T, Newby J, Nguyen M, Norman BE, Nyanin AS, Nystrand J, O'Brien E, Ogilvie CA, Ohnishi H, Ojha ID, Okada H, Okada K, Omiwade OO, Oskarsson A, Otterlund I, Ozawa K, Pal D, Palounek APT, Pantuev V, Papavassiliou V, Park J, Park WJ, Pate SF, Pei H, Peng JC, Pereira H, Peresedov V, Peressounko DY, Pinkenburg C, Pisani RP, Purschke ML, Purwar AK, Qu H, Rak J, Ravinovich I, Read KF, Reuter M, Reygers K, Riabov V, Riabov Y, Roche G, Romana A, Rosati M, Rosendahl SSE, Rosnet P, Rukoyatkin P, Rykov VL, Ryu SS, Sahlmueller B, Saito N, Sakaguchi T, Sakai S, Samsonov V, Sato HD, Sato S, Sawada S, Semenov V, Seto R, Sharma D, Shea TK, Shein I, Shibata TA, Shigaki K, Shimomura M, Shohjoh T, Shoji K, Sickles A, Silva CL, Silvermyr D, Sim KS, Singh CP, Singh V, Skutnik S, Smith WC, Soldatov A, Soltz RA, Sondheim WE, Sorensen SP, Sourikova IV, Staley F, Stankus PW, Stenlund E, Stepanov M, Ster A, Stoll SP, Sugitate T, Suire C, Sullivan JP, Sziklai J, Tabaru T, Takagi S, Takagui EM, Taketani A, Tanaka KH, Tanaka Y, Tanida K, Tannenbaum MJ, Taranenko A, Tarjan P, Thomas TL, Togawa M, Tojo J, Torii H, Towell RS, Tram VN, Tserruya I, Tsuchimoto Y, Tuli SK, Tydesjo H, Tyurin N, Vale C, Valle H, van Hecke HW, Velkovska J, Vertesi R, Vinogradov AA, Vznuzdaev E, Wagner M, Wang XR, Watanabe Y, Wessels J, White SN, Willis N, Winter D, Woody CL, Wysocki M, Xie W, Yanovich A, Yokkaichi S, Young GR, Younus I, Yushmanov IE, Zajc WA, Zaudtke O, Zhang C, Zimanyi J, Zolin L

Abstract

Measurements of the azimuthal anisotropy of high-p(T) neutral pion (pi(0)) production in Au+Au collisions at s(NN)=200 GeV by the PHENIX experiment are presented. The data included in this article were collected during the 2004 Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider running period and represent approximately an order of magnitude increase in the number of analyzed events relative to previously published results. Azimuthal angle distributions of pi(0) mesons detected in the PHENIX electromagnetic calorimeters are measured relative to the reaction plane determined event-by-event using the forward and backward beam-beam counters. Amplitudes of the second Fourier component (v(2)) of the angular distributions are presented as a function of pi(0) transverse momentum (p(T)) for different bins in collision centrality. Measured reaction plane dependent pi(0) yields are used to determine the azimuthal dependence of the pi(0) suppression as a function of p(T), R-AA(Delta phi,p(T)). A jet-quenching motivated geometric analysis is presented that attempts to simultaneously describe the centrality dependence and reaction plane angle dependence of the pi(0) suppression in terms of the path lengths of hypothetical parent partons in the medium. This set of results allows for a detailed examination of the influence of geometry in the collision region and of the interplay between collective flow and jet-quenching effects along the azimuthal axis.