Observables in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions from two different transport approaches for the same initial conditions

TL;DR

This study compares two different transport models, RSP and PHSD, for simulating ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC energies, finding similar final particle distributions despite different initial assumptions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that two conceptually different transport approaches yield similar final observables, highlighting challenges in extracting initial plasma properties from experimental data.

Findings

Final transverse momentum distributions of pions and kaons are similar in both models.

Different initial parton descriptions lead to comparable final hadron spectra.

Model differences do not significantly affect key observable outcomes.

Abstract

For nucleus-nucleus collisions at Relativistic-Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) energies we calculate observables in two conceptually transport theories, i.e. the n-body molecular dynamical model RSP and in the Parton-Hadron-String-Dynamics (PHSD), starting out from the same distribution of the initial energy density at the quark gluon plasma (QGP) formation time. The RSP is based on the Nambu Jona-Lasinio (NJL) Lagrangian whereas in PHSD the partons are described by the dynamical quasi-particle model (DQPM). Despite of the very different description of the parton properties, their interactions and of the hadronization in both approaches the final transverse momentum distributions of pions and kaons are rather similar. Thus it will be difficult to conclude from the final experimenal data on the details of the initial plasma properties.