Role of bulk viscosity in deuteron production in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions

TL;DR

This study uses a Bayesian-calibrated viscous hydrodynamic model to analyze deuteron production in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions, highlighting the significant impact of bulk viscosity on the results.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of deuteron production considering bulk viscosity, thermal contributions, and formation models within a Bayesian-calibrated hydrodynamic framework.

Findings

Good agreement with deuteron mean transverse momentum and flow data

Tension with deuteron multiplicity in central collisions

Results highly sensitive to bulk viscosity assumptions

Abstract

We use a Bayesian-calibrated multistage viscous hydrodynamic model to explore deuteron yield, mean transverse momentum and flow observables in LHC Pb-Pb collisions. We explore theoretical uncertainty in the production of deuterons, including (i) the contribution of thermal deuterons, (ii) models for the subsequent formation of deuterons (hadronic transport vs coalescence) and (iii) the overall sensitivity of the results to the hydrodynamic model -- in particular to bulk viscosity, which is often neglected in studies of deuteron production. Using physical parameters set by a comparison to only light hadron observables, we find good agreement with measurements of the mean transverse momentum $\langle p_T \rangle$ and elliptic flow $v_2$ of deuterons; however, tension is observed with experimental data for the deuteron multiplicity in central collisions. The results are found to be sensitive to each of the mentioned theoretical uncertainties, with a particular sensitivity to bulk viscosity, indicating that the latter is an important ingredient for an accurate treatment of deuteron production.