Jet quenching at intermediate RHIC energies

The final state energy loss of fast partons penetrating a longitudinally expanding quark-gluon plasma of effective gluon rapidity density dN(g)/dy = 650-800 is evaluated and incorporated together with the multiple initial state Cronin scattering in the lowest order perturbative QCD hadron production formalism. Predictions for the neutral pion attenuation in central An + An collisions at the intermediate RHIC energy of roots(NN) = 62 GeV relative to the binary collision scaled p + p result are given. The quenching is found to be a factor of 2-3 with a moderate transverse momentum dependence and the attenuation of the away side di-hadron correlation function is estimated to be 3-5-fold. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.