Modified equilibrium distributions for Cooper--Frye particlization

TL;DR

This paper proposes a positive definite modified equilibrium distribution for better modeling the transition from hydrodynamics to kinetic descriptions in heavy-ion collisions, improving physical consistency at large momenta.

Contribution

It introduces a new distribution function that enhances the physical realism of particle spectra calculations during the freeze-out process in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

Significantly reduces unphysical negative distributions at high momenta.

Improves agreement of particle spectra and flow coefficients with experimental data.

Applicable to hydrodynamic models with viscous corrections in heavy-ion collision simulations.

Abstract

We introduce a positive definite single-particle distribution that is suitable for describing the transition from a macroscopic hydrodynamic to a microscopic kinetic description during the late stages of heavy-ion collisions in the presence of moderately large viscous corrections. The modified equilibrium distribution function can be constructed with hydrodynamic input from either relativistic viscous fluid dynamics or anisotropic fluid dynamics. We test the modified equilibrium distribution's hydrodynamic output for a stationary hadron resonance gas subject to either shear stress, bulk pressure, or baryon diffusion current at a given freeze-out temperature and baryon chemical potential. While it does not reproduce all components of the net baryon current and energy-momentum tensor exactly, it significantly improves upon the customary linearized approximations for the non-equilibrium correction $\delta f_n$ which typically lead to unphysical negative distribution functions at large particle momenta. A comparison of particle spectra and $p_T$-differential elliptic flow coefficients from the Cooper-Frye formula computed with the modified equilibrium distribution and with linearized $\delta f_n$ corrections is presented, for two different (2+1)-dimensional hypersurfaces corresponding to central and non-central Pb+Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).