Hydrodynamical modeling of the deconfinement phase transition and explosive hadronization

TL;DR

This paper uses a hydrodynamical model to study the deconfinement phase transition in heavy-ion collisions, highlighting the potential for explosive hadronization and non-statistical fluctuations in observables.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of explosive disintegration of the deconfined phase into droplets and discusses non-equilibrium effects in heavy-ion collision dynamics.

Findings

Pion rapidity spectra show low sensitivity to the phase transition.

Inconsistencies are found in the equilibrium scenario.

Droplet size decreases with increasing expansion rate.

Abstract

Dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions is investigated on the basis of a simple (1+1)-dimensional hydrodynamical model in light-cone coordinates. The main emphasis is put on studying sensitivity of the dynamics and observables to the equation of state and initial conditions. Low sensitivity of pion rapidity spectra to the presence of the phase transition is demonstrated, and some inconsistencies of the equilibrium scenario are pointed out. Possible non-equilibrium effects are discussed, in particular, a possibility of an explosive disintegration of the deconfined phase into quark-gluon droplets. Simple estimates show that the characteristic droplet size should decrease with increasing the collective expansion rate. These droplets will hadronize individually by emitting hadrons from the surface. This scenario should reveal itself by strong non-statistical fluctuations of observables.