Bjorken flow in one-dimensional relativistic magnetohydrodynamics with magnetization

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-zero magnetization affects the evolution of a relativistic fluid with magnetic fields, revealing that magnetization can slow down or speed up energy decay, with potential implications for heavy-ion collision dynamics.

Contribution

It extends previous magnetohydrodynamics models by including non-zero magnetic susceptibility and analyzes their effects on energy density decay and system reheating.

Findings

Magnetization influences energy density decay rates.

Paramagnetic fluids slow energy decay, diamagnetic fluids accelerate it.

Strong magnetic fields can significantly extend quark-gluon plasma lifetime.

Abstract

We study the one-dimensional, longitudinally boost-invariant motion of an ideal fluid with infinite conductivity in the presence of a transverse magnetic field, i.e., in the ideal transverse magnetohydrodynamical limit. In an extension of our previous work Roy et al., [Phys. Lett. B 750, 45 (2015)], we consider the fluid to have a non-zero magnetization. First, we assume a constant magnetic susceptibility $\chi_{m}$ and consider an ultrarelativistic ideal gas equation of state. For a paramagnetic fluid (i.e., with $\chi_{m}>0$), the decay of the energy density slows down since the fluid gains energy from the magnetic field. For a diamagnetic fluid (i.e., with $\chi_{m}<0$), the energy density decays faster because it feeds energy into the magnetic field. Furthermore, when the magnetic field is taken to be external and to decay in proper time $\tau$ with a power law $\sim\tau^{-a}$, two distinct solutions can be found depending on the values of $a$ and $\chi_m$. Finally, we also solve the ideal magnetohydrodynamical equations for one-dimensional Bjorken flow with a temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility and a realistic equation of state given by lattice-QCD data. We find that the temperature and energy density decay more slowly because of the non-vanishing magnetization. For values of the magnetic field typical for heavy-ion collisions, this effect is, however, rather small. Only for magnetic fields which are about an order of magnitude larger than expected for heavy-ion collisions, the system is substantially reheated and the lifetime of the quark phase might be extended.