Minijet Production in High-Energy Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions

Uranium-uranium collisions at the energy of the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (100 + 100 GeV per nucleon) are predicted to produce an average of nearly 100 jets with pT>3 GeV. These jets will on average carry of 70 GeV of transverse energy ET per unit rapidity. Central collisions produce more transverse energy than this; the ET distribution extends up to about (5A4/3 GeV⁴)pTmin³ per unit rapidity, which is 4 times the average. It is estimated that the minijets are likely to undergo further collisions and become thermalized.