High-pT Physics in the Heavy Ion Era

Aimed at graduate students and researchers in the field of high-energy nuclear physics, this book provides an overview of the basic concepts of large transverse momentum particle physics, with a focus on pQCD phenomena. It examines high-pT probes of relativistic heavy-ion collisions and will serve as a handbook for those working on RHIC and LHC data analyses. Starting with an introduction and review of the field, the authors look at basic observables and experimental techniques, concentrating on relativistic particle kinematics, before moving onto a discussion about the origins of high-pT physics. The main features of high-pT physics are placed within a historical context and the authors adopt an experimental outlook, highlighting the most important discoveries leading up to the foundation of modern QCD theory. Advanced methods are described in detail, making this book especially useful for newcomers to the field.

Jan Rak is a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Physics at Jyväskylä University, Finland. He is also project leader of ALICE/CERN for Finland and was involved in the CERES/SPS experiment at CERN, Switzerland and the PHENIX experiment at the RHIC, USA.

Michael J. Tannenbaum is a Senior Scientist within the Physics Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory. His achievements include measurement of the statistics of the muon, and discoveries in hard-scattering of quarks and gluons at the CERN-ISR which he applied to the discovery of jet-quenching in collisions of nuclei at the RHIC, USA.