Elliptic flow of thermal photons in relativistic nuclear collisions

We predict the transverse momentum (p(T)) dependence of elliptic flow of thermal photons for Au + Au collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We model the system hydrodynamically, with a thermalized quark-gluon plasma at early times followed by hadronization and decoupling. Photons are...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2006-05, Vol.96 (20), p.202302-202302, Article 202302
Main Authors: Chatterjee, Rupa, Frodermann, Evan S, Heinz, Ulrich, Srivastava, Dinesh K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ANISOTROPY
BNL
BROOKHAVEN RHIC
COLLIDING BEAMS
GOLD 197 BEAMS
GOLD 197 REACTIONS
GOLD 197 TARGET
NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
PHOTONS
PIONS
QUARK MATTER
QUARKS
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
TRANSVERSE MOMENTUM
VECTOR MESONS
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Summary:We predict the transverse momentum (p(T)) dependence of elliptic flow of thermal photons for Au + Au collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We model the system hydrodynamically, with a thermalized quark-gluon plasma at early times followed by hadronization and decoupling. Photons are emitted throughout the expansion history. Contrary to hadron elliptic flow, which increases monotonically with p(T), the elliptic flow nu2(p(T)) of thermal photons is predicted to first rise and then fall again. Photon elliptic flow at high p(T) reflects the quark momentum anisotropy at early times when it is small, while at low p(T) it mirrors the large pion momentum anisotropy during the late hadronic emission stage. An interesting structure is predicted at intermediate p(T) approximately 0.4 GeV/c, where photon elliptic flow reflects the momenta and the (compared to pions) reduced nu2 of heavy vector mesons in the late hadronic phase.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.96.202302