Quenching of high p_⊥ hadron spectra by hadronic interactions in heavy ion collisions at relativistic energies

Typically, the materialization of highly energetic transverse partons to hadronic jets is assumed to occur outside the reaction zone in a relativistic heavy ion collision. In contrast, a quantum mechanical estimate yields a time on the order of only a few fm/c for building up the hadronic wave function for jets with typical transverse momenta of p_⊥<~10GeV, as accessible at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) facilities. The role of possible elastic or inelastic collisions of these high p_⊥ particles with the bulk of hadrons inside the fireball is addressed by means of an opacity expansion in the number of collisions. This analysis shows that the hadronic final state interactions can, in principle, account for the modification of the (moderate) high p_⊥ spectrum observed for central collisions at RHIC.