Fermi motion and nuclear modification factor

Antoni Szczurek, Andrzej Budzanowski

Published 2003-11-07, updated 2004-06-21Version 2

It has been argued recently that the so-called nuclear modification factor ($R_{AA}$) is an observable useful for identifying the quark-gluon plasma. We discuss the effect of Fermi motion in nuclei on $R_{AA}$ at CERN SPS and BNL RHIC energies. Contrary to the simple intuition, rather large effects are found for CERN SPS. The Fermi motion in nuclei contributes significantly to the Cronin effect. The effect found is qualitatively similar to the one observed experimentally at CERN energies and similar to the one obtained in the models of multiple scattering of initial partons. We predict different size of the effect for different types of hadrons, especially at low energies.