Charm quarks are more hydrodynamic than light quarks in final-state elliptic flow

Abstract

We study the charm quark elliptic flow ($v_2$) in heavy ion as well as small system collisions by tracking the evolution history of quarks of different flavors within a multi-phase transport model. The charm quark $v_2$ is studied as a function of the number of collisions the charm quark suffers with other quarks and then compared to the $v_2$ of lighter quarks. We find that the common escape mechanism is at work for both the charm and light quark $v_2$. However, contrary to the naive expectation, the hydrodynamics-type flow is found to contribute more to the final state charm $v_2$ than light quark $v_2$. This could be explained by the smaller average deflection angle the heavier charm quark undergoes in each collision, so that heavy quarks need more scatterings to accumulate a significant $v_2$, while lighter quarks can more easily change directions with scatterings with their $v_2$ coming more from the escape mechanism. Our finding thus suggests that the charm $v_2$ is a better probe for studying the hydrodynamic properties of the quark-gluon plasma.

10 pages, 4 figures