Anisotropic turbulence in relativistic plasmas

TL;DR

This paper investigates anisotropic turbulence in relativistic plasmas from heavy ion collisions, revealing persistent large-scale momentum anisotropy and deviations from isotropic turbulence, with different scaling behaviors in transverse and longitudinal planes.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of anisotropic turbulence signatures and scaling exponents in relativistic heavy ion collision plasmas, highlighting persistent anisotropy effects.

Findings

Anisotropic turbulence signatures are observed in initial collision stages.

Scaling exponents differ between transverse and longitudinal planes.

Temperature and energy spectra deviate from isotropic turbulence expectations.

Abstract

Signs of turbulence have been observed at the relativistic heavy ion collision at high collision energies. We study the signatures of turbulence in this system and find that there are significant departures from isotropic turbulence in the initial stages of the collision. Since the anisotropic fluctuations are sub leading to the isotropic fluctuations, the Kolmogorov spectrum can usually be obtained even for the initial stages. However, the energy spectrum and the temperature fluctuations indicate deviations from isotropic turbulence. Since a strong momentum anisotropy exists between the transverse and the longitudinal plane, we study the energy density spectrum in these two planes. The geometrical anisotropy is reflected in the anisotropic turbulence generated in the rotating plasma and we find that the scaling exponent is different in the two planes. We find that the scaling exponents in the longitudinal plane are independent of centrality while the scaling exponent in the transverse plane depends on the centrality range. We also obtain the temperature spectrum in the initial stages. The spectrum deviates from the Gaussian spectra expected for an isotropic turbulence. All these seem to indicate that the large scale momentum anisotropy persists in the smaller length scales for the relativistic heavy ion collisions.