Initial state parton broadening and energy loss probed in d plus Au at RHIC

The impact parameter and rapidity dependence of the Cronin effect for massless pions in d + Au reactions at rootSNN = 200 GeV at RHIC is computed in the framework of pQCD multiple elastic scattering on a nuclear target. We introduce a formalism to incorporate initial state energy loss in perturbative calculations and take into account the elastic energy loss in addition to the transverse momentum broadening of partons. We argue that the centrality dependence of the Cronin effect can distinguish between different hadron production scenarios at RHIC. Its magnitude and rapidity dependence are shown to carry important experimental information about the properties of cold nuclear matter up to the moderate- and large-x antishadowing/EMC regions. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.