Enhanced minijet production in A-A collisions from gluons with large transverse momenta

We find supersaturation for the intrinsic gluon distribution of nuclei, i.e ., the low x unintegrated nuclear gluon distribution peaks at intermediate transverse momenta k(t) = Q(s) and vanishes at zero k(t). Taking into accou nt the intrinsic transverse momenta of the gluons and the saturation scale p(s) of the produced gluons, we calculate the minijet cross section arising from gluon gluon scattering for RHIC energies. For central collisions at r oots = 200 GeV the saturation scale p(s) approximate to 1.4 GeV is larger d ue to intrinsic k(t) effects and increases with energy. Our theoretical res ults on charged particle multiplicity agree Very well with the recent exper imental data from RHIC. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.