From full stopping to transparency in a holographic model of heavy ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper uses holographic simulations to study shock wave collisions, revealing a transition from hydrodynamic stopping to high-energy transparency with distinct energy density profiles.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical holographic model capturing the dynamical transition between stopping and transparency regimes in heavy ion collisions.

Findings

Low-energy shocks stop and explode like Landau hydrodynamics.

High-energy shocks exhibit near-light speed receding fragments.

Energy density distribution becomes Gaussian at high energies.

Abstract

We numerically simulate planar shock wave collisions in anti-de Sitter space as a model for heavy ion collisions of large nuclei. We uncover a cross-over between two different dynamical regimes as a function of the collision energy. At low energies the shocks first stop and then explode in a manner approximately described by hydrodynamics, in close similarity with the Landau model. At high energies the receding fragments move outwards at the speed of light, with a region of negative energy density and negative longitudinal pressure trailing behind them. The rapidity distribution of the energy density at late times around mid-rapidity is not approximately boost-invariant but Gaussian, albeit with a width that increases with the collision energy.