  The dense medium created in Au + Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion
Collider (RHIC) significantly suppresses particle production from hard
scattering processes and their characteristic back-to-back angular correlation.
We present a simple model of jet absorption in dense matter which incorporates
a realistic nuclear geometry. Our calculations are performed at the jet level
and assume independent jet fragmentation in the vacuum. This model describes
quantitatively the centrality dependence of the observed suppression of the
high $p_T$ hadron yield and of the back-to-back angular correlations. The
azimuthal anisotropy of high $p_T$ particle production can not be accounted for
using a realistic nuclear geometry.
