Phenomenology of the little bang
arXiv:1008.3323 · doi:10.1088/1742-6596/312/1/012002
Abstract
I review recent selected developments in the theory and modeling of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. I explain why relativistic viscous hydrodynamics is now used to model the expansion of the matter formed in these collisions. I give examples of first quantitative predictions, and I discuss remaining open questions associated with the description of the freeze-out process. I argue that while the expansion process is now well understood, our knowledge of initial conditions is still poor. Recent analyses of two-particle correlations have revealed fine structures known as ridge and shoulder, which extend over a long range in rapidity. These correlations are thought to originate from initial state fluctuations, whose modeling is still crude. I discuss triangular flow, a simple mechanism recently put forward, through which fluctuations generate the observed correlation pattern.
10 pages, plenary talk at the International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC 2010), Vancouver, Canada, July 4-9, 2010. (version 2: minor revision.)
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- Collision geometry fluctuations and triangular flow in heavy-ion collisions
- Relativistic viscous hydrodynamics, conformal invariance, and holography
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- Fully integrated transport approach to heavy ion reactions with an intermediate hydrodynamic stage
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- Triangular flow in hydrodynamics and transport theory
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Cited by in corpus (18)
- Pressure isotropization in high energy heavy ion collisions
- Transverse momentum-flow correlations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
- Large directed flow of open charm mesons probes the three dimensional distribution of matter in heavy ion collisions
- Effects of magnetic field on the plasma evolution in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
- Fluctuations of the initial color fields in high energy heavy ion collisions
- Interplay of drag by hot matter and electromagnetic force on the directed flow of heavy quarks
- Correlation coefficient between harmonic and transverse flow in heavy-ion collisions
- Splitting of proton-antiproton directed flow in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
- On the origin of trigger-angle dependence of di-hadron correlations
- Principal component analysis of the nonlinear coupling of harmonic modes in heavy-ion collisions
- Higher order cumulants of transverse momentum and harmonic flow in relativistic heavy ion collisions
- Factorization breaking for higher moments of harmonic flow
- Angle and magnitude decorrelation in the factorization breaking of collective flow
- Two-particle correlations at high-energy nuclear collisions, peripheral-tube model revisited
- Pseudorapidity profile of transverse momentum fluctuations in heavy ion collisions
- Power spectrum of flow fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
- Interplay of longitudinal and transverse expansion in the kinetic dynamics of heavy-ion collisions
- Initial fluctuations and power spectrum of flow anisotropies in relativistic heavy-ion collisions