Indications of early thermalization in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
Nuclear Theory
2011-02-23 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Experiment
Abstract
The directed flow of particles emitted from the fireball created in a heavy-ion collision is shown to be a very sensitive measure of the pressure equilibration in the first 1 fm/c of the evolution. Performing a 3+1 dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic calculation with nonequilibrated longitudinal and transverse pressures, we show that the directed flow is strongly reduced if the pressure imbalance survives for even a short time. Transverse momentum spectra, elliptic flow and interferometry correlation radii are not very sensitive to this early pressure anisotropy. Comparison with the data points toward a short equilibration time of the order of fm/c or less.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1009.0701,
title = {Indications of early thermalization in relativistic heavy-ion collisions},
author = {Piotr Bozek and Iwona Wyskiel-Piekarska},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.0701},
year = {2011}
}