Energy dependence of elliptic flow from heavy-ion collision models

TL;DR

This study compares experimental elliptic flow data from heavy-ion collisions at various energies with different models, revealing the significance of partonic interactions at higher energies and the limitations of current models at lower energies.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of experimental data with multiple models, highlighting the energy dependence of elliptic flow and the importance of partonic effects at high energies.

Findings

UrQMD matches data at 9.2 GeV but underestimates at higher energies.

HIJING results are consistent with zero elliptic flow.

AMPT with partonic effects aligns with experimental data at 200 GeV.

Abstract

We have compared the experimental data on charged particle elliptic flow parameter (v2) in Au+Au collisions at midrapidity for \surd sNN = 9.2, 19.6, 62.4 and 200 GeV with results from various models in heavy-ion collisions like UrQMD, AMPT, and HIJING. We observe that the average <v2> from the transport model UrQMD agrees well with the measurements at \surd sNN = 9.2 GeV but increasingly falls short of the experimental <v2> values as the beam energy increases. The difference in <v2> being of the order of 60% at \surd sNN = 200 GeV. The <v2> results from HIJING is consistent with zero, while those from AMPT with default settings, a model based on HIJING with additional initial and final state rescattering effects included, gives a <v2> value of about 4% for all the beam energies studied. This is in contrast to increase in <v2> with beam energy for the experimental data. A different version of the AMPT model, which includes partonic effects and quark coalescence as a mechanism of hadronization, gives higher values of <v2> among the models studied and is in agreement with the measured <v2> values at \surd sNN = 200 GeV. These studies show that the experimental < v2 > has substantial contribution from partonic interactions at \surd sNN = 200 GeV whose magnitude reduces with decrease in beam energy. We also compare the available data on the transverse momentum and pseudorapidity dependence of v2 to those from the above models.