Magnetic fields in heavy ion collisions: flow and charge transport

TL;DR

This paper explores how dynamical magnetic fields and chiral magnetic conductivity influence the hydrodynamic evolution and charge transport in heavy-ion collisions, revealing potential observable effects such as charge dipoles and flow modifications.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical MHD framework incorporating chiral magnetic effects to study magnetic field impacts on heavy-ion collision observables.

Findings

Magnetic fields slightly affect pion elliptic flow.

Enhanced elliptic flow observed in peripheral collisions with stronger magnetic fields.

Chiral magnetic conductivity induces a charge dipole detectable in experimental observables.

Abstract

At the earliest times after a heavy-ion collision, the magnetic field created by the spectator nucleons will generate an extremely strong, albeit rapidly decreasing in time, magnetic field. The impact of this magnetic field may have detectable consequences, and is believed to drive anomalous transport effects like the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME). We detail an exploratory study on the effects of a dynamical magnetic field on the hydrodynamic medium created in the collisions of two ultrarelativistic heavy-ions, using the framework of numerical ideal MagnetoHydroDynamics (MHD) with the ECHO-QGP code. In this study, we consider a magnetic field captured in a conducting medium, where the conductivity can receive contributions from the electromagnetic conductivity $\sigma$ and the chiral magnetic conductivity $\sigma_{\chi}$. We first study the elliptic flow of pions, which we show is relatively unchanged by the introduction of a magnetic field. However, by increasing the magnitude of the magnetic field, we find evidence for an enhancement of the elliptic flow in peripheral collisions. Next, we explore the impact of the chiral magnetic conductivity on electric charges produced at the edges of the fireball. This initial $\sigma_\chi$ can be understood as a long-wavelength effective description of chiral fermion production. We then demonstrate that this chiral charge, when transported by the MHD medium, produces a charge dipole perpendicular to the reaction plane which extends a few units in rapidity. Assuming charge conservation at the freeze-out surface, we show that the produced charge imbalance can have measurable effects on some experimental observables, like $v_1$ or $\langle \sin \phi \rangle$. This demonstrates the ability of a MHD fluid to transport the signature of the initial chiral magnetic fields to late times.