Abstract:
Different treatments for the inclusion of
higher-order
perturbative QCD corrections in parton based
transport
models of relativistic heavy-ion collisions
are studied and
their influence on experimental observables
is investigated.
At RHIC, particle multiplicities may vary by
more than 30%,
depending on the correction scheme. A
detailed analysis of
the squared relative momentum transfers to be
expected in
parton (re)scatterings at RHIC casts doubt on the
applicability of pQCD based transport
approaches at the SPS
and rules out the application of higher-order
correction
schemes based on a rescaling of the relative
squared
momentum transfers in the running coupling
constant at all
energies.