Heavy ion collisions and cosmology

TL;DR

This paper explores the parallels between heavy ion collision physics and cosmology, highlighting how insights from one field can inform the other, especially regarding fluid dynamics, perturbations, and dissipative properties.

Contribution

It proposes applying cosmological perturbation theory to heavy ion physics and studying dissipative effects in cosmology using heavy ion physics insights.

Findings

Potential for cross-disciplinary methods in fluid perturbation analysis

Constraints on dark matter properties from fluid viscosity studies

Enhanced understanding of out-of-equilibrium relativistic fluids

Abstract

There are interesting parallels between the physics of heavy ion collisions and cosmology. Both systems are out-of-equilibrium and relativistic fluid dynamics plays an important role for their theoretical description. From a comparison one can draw interesting conclusions for both sides. For heavy ion physics it could be rewarding to attempt a theoretical description of fluid perturbations similar to cosmological perturbation theory. In the context of late time cosmology, it could be interesting to study dissipative properties such as shear and bulk viscosity and corresponding relaxation times in more detail. Knowledge and experience from heavy ion physics could help to constrain the microscopic properties of dark matter from observational knowledge of the cosmological fluid properties.