Hydrodynamic radial and elliptic flow in heavy-ion collisions from AGS to LHC energies

Abstract

Using ideal relativistic hydrodynamics in 2+1 dimensions, we study the collision energy dependence of radial and elliptic flow, of the emitted hadron spectra, and of the transverse momentum dependence of several hadronic particle ratios, covering the range from Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) to Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies. These calculations establish an ideal fluid dynamic baseline that can be used to assess non-equilibrium features manifest in future LHC heavy-ion experiments. Contrary to earlier suggestions we find that a saturation and even decrease of the differential elliptic flow v_2(p_T) with increasing collision energy cannot be unambiguously associated with the QCD phase transition.

10 pages, 6 figures. References and two footnotes added. To appear in European Physical Journal C in Hard Probes 2008 Special Topics Issue

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Causal Viscous Hydrodynamics for Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions