Elliptical Flow in Relativistic Ion Collisions at s^(1/2)= 200 A GeV

TL;DR

This paper models elliptical flow in relativistic ion collisions at RHIC energies using a two-phase simulation approach, incorporating pre-hadron formation via perturbative QCD and subsequent hadron-like cascades, to explain experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a perturbative QCD-based model for pre-hadron formation and demonstrates its effectiveness in reproducing elliptical flow in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

Elliptical flow arises naturally from the two-phase collision process.

The model aligns well with experimental data from RHIC.

Pre-hadron formation is crucial for understanding flow phenomena.

Abstract

A consistent picture of the Au+Au and D+Au, s^1/2 = 200 A GeV measurements at RHIC obtained with the PHENIX, STAR, PHOBOS and BRAHMS detectors including both the rapidity and transverse momentum spectra was previously developed with the simulation LUCIFER. The approach was modeled on the early production of a fluid of pre-hadrons after the completion of an initial, phase of high energy interactions. The formation of pre-hadrons is discussed here, in a perturbative QCD approach as advocated by Kopeliovich, Nemchik and Schmidt. In the second phase of LUCIFER, a considerably lower energy hadron-like cascade ensues. Since the dominant collisions occurring in this latter phase are meson-meson in character while the initial collisions are between baryons, i.e. both involve hadron sized interaction cross-sections, there is good reason to suspect that the observed elliptical flow will be produced naturally, and this is indeed found to be the case.