Momentum anisotropy in nuclear collisions from quantum mechanics
Abstract
We point out that the intrinsic relationship between space and momentum in quantum physics through the uncertainty principle has potential implications for momentum anisotropy in heavy-ion collisions. Using a harmonic oscillator potential we calculate the elliptic anisotropy and find it to be sizeable compared to elliptic flow measurements in nuclear collisions. Our results question the validity of the completely hydrodynamic interpretation of anisotropic flow data, and highlight the importance of including quantum physics in hydrodynamic calculations which has largely been neglected so far.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1404.4119,
title = {Momentum anisotropy in nuclear collisions from quantum mechanics},
author = {Denes Molnar and Chris. H. Greene and Fuqiang Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1404.4119},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
Version 2 reinforces the original results with a fully numerical calculation for massless (ultrarelativistic) particles. Some typos have also been corrected. [5 pages, 3 figures (4 EPS files), RevTex style]