Elastic, inelastic, and path length fluctuations in jet tomography

Jet quenching theory using perturbative QCD is extended to include (1) elastic as well as (2) inelastic parton energy losses and (3) jet path length fluctuations. The extended theory is applied to non-photonic single electron production in central Au + Au collisions at root s = 200 A GeV. The three effects combine to significantly reduce the discrepancy between theory and current data without violating the global entropy bounds from multiplicity and elliptic flow data. We also check for consistency with the pion suppression data out to 20 GeV. Fluctuations of the jet path lengths in realistic geometry and the difference between the widths of fluctuations of elastic and inelastic energy loss are essential to take into account. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.