Gluon Radiation and Heavy Quark Radiative Energy Loss in Quark Gluon Plasma

The energy loss of heavy quarks in a quark-gluon plasma of finite size is studied within the light-cone integral approach. A simple analytical formulation of the radiative energy loss of heavy quarks is derived. This provides a convenient way to quantitatively estimate the quark energy loss. Our results show that if the energy of a heavy quark is much larger than its mass, the radiative energy loss approaches the radiative energy loss of light quarks