Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions: Viscous Hydrodynamic Simulations and Final State Interactions

Abstract

In this dissertation I introduce relativistic heavy ion collisions and describe theoretical approaches to understanding them--in particular, viscous hydrodynamic simulations and investigations of final state interactions. The successful ideal hydrodynamic models of the collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) were extended by performing viscous hydrodynamic simulations. This was done by making use of the recently derived full conformally invariant second order relativistic viscous hydrodynamic equations. Results for multiplicity, radial flow and elliptic flow in sqrt{s_NN}=200 GeV Au+Au RHIC collisions are presented and the range of the ratio of shear viscosity over entropy density eta/s for which our hydrodynamic model is consistent with experimental data is quoted. In addition, simulations were performed of the planned sqrt{s_NN}=5.5 TeV Pb+Pb and sqrt{s}=14 TeV p+p collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The elliptic flow coefficient v_2 is predicted to be 10% larger for the Pb+Pb collisions compared to top energy RHIC collisions, and is predicted to be consistent with zero for proton collisions unless eta/s < 0.08. Finally, final state interactions were investigated within the distorted wave emission function (DWEF) model. Work is presented on an improved understanding of the DWEF model, and the potential effect of final state interactions in the form of a pion optical potential on the elliptic flow coefficient v_2 was calculated to be at the ~20% level.

Ph.D. thesis, 134 pages, 21 figures

References in corpus (32)

• Viscosity in Strongly Interacting Quantum Field Theories from Black Hole Physics
• Viscosity Information from Relativistic Nuclear Collisions: How Perfect is the Fluid Observed at RHIC?
• Equation of state and QCD transition at finite temperature
• A calculation of the bulk viscosity in SU(3) gluodynamics
• Fully integrated transport approach to heavy ion reactions with an intermediate hydrodynamic stage
• Suppression of elliptic flow in a minimally viscous quark-gluon plasma
• Thermal Dileptons at LHC
• Heavy-Quark Kinetics in the QGP at LHC
• Multiplicity scaling in ideal and viscous hydrodynamics
• Centrality dependence of charged hadron and strange hadron elliptic flow from sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions
• Bulk viscosity of gauge theory plasma at strong coupling
• The centrality dependence of elliptic flow, the hydrodynamic limit, and the viscosity of hot QCD
• Entropy Current in Conformal Hydrodynamics
• Heavy quark diffusion in perturbative QCD at next-to-leading order
• Second order hydrodynamic coefficients from kinetic theory
• Eccentricity fluctuations from the Color Glass Condensate at RHIC and LHC
• The applicability of causal dissipative hydrodynamics to relativistic heavy ion collisions
• Resolving the HBT Puzzle in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collision
• Initial condition for hydrodynamics, partonic free streaming, and the uniform description of soft observables at RHIC
• The Shear Viscosity to Entropy Density Ratio of Trapped Fermions in the Unitarity Limit
• Causal Viscous Hydrodynamics for Central Heavy-Ion Collisions II: Meson Spectra and HBT Radii
• How much entropy is produced in strongly coupled Quark-Gluon Plasma (sQGP) by dissipative effects?
• Detailed description of accelerating, simple solutions of relativistic perfect fluid hydrodynamics
• Entropy production in high-energy heavy-ion collisions and the correlation of shear viscosity and thermalization time
• NeXSPheRIO Results on Elliptic-Flow Fluctuations at RHIC
• Saturation of elliptic flow and shear viscosity
• Evolution of Hot, Dissipative Quark Matter in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions
• Aspects of causal viscous hydrodynamics
• Viscous hydrodynamics
• Understanding the Optical Potential in HBT Interferometry
• Elliptic flow from final state interactions in the distorted-wave emission-function model
• Interpreting scattering wave functions in the presence of energy-dependent interactions