High-pt Particle Production at PHENIX

Abstract

It has been established that "hard probes", observables involving high-momentum transfer, provide useful tools for studying the hot, dense medium created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC. The nuclear modification factor, azimuthal correlations, direct photon production, as well as the dependence of the nuclear modificaton factor on centrality and angle with respect to the reaction plane are critical for understanding the early dynamics of such heavy-ion collisions. We will review recent results from PHENIX for particle production at high-pT and discuss their implications.