No Arabic abstract
The directed flow of particles produced in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at SPS and RHIC is so small that currently available methods of analysis are at the border of applicability. Standard two-particle and flow-vector methods are biased by large nonflow correlations. On the other hand, cumulants of four-particle correlations, which are free from this bias, are plagued by large statistical errors. Here, we present a new method based on three-particle correlations, which uses the property that elliptic flow is large at these energies. This method may also be useful at intermediate energies, near the balance energy where directed flow vanishes.
Recently the splitting of elliptic flow $v_2$ at finite rapidities has been proposed as a result of the global vorticity in non-central relativistic heavy ion collisions. Using a multi-phase transport model that automatically includes the vorticity field and flow fluctuations, we confirm the left-right (i.e., on opposite sides of the impact parameter axis) splitting of the elliptic flow at finite rapidities. However, we find that this $v_2$ splitting is a result of the non-zero directed flow $v_1$ at finite rapidities, with the splitting magnitude $approx 8v_1/3pi$. As a result, the $v_2$ splitting vanishes at zero transverse momentum ($p_{rm T}$), and its magnitude and sign may have non-trivial dependences on $p_{rm T}$, centrality, collision energy, and hadron species. Since the left-right $v_2$ splitting is a combined effect of $v_1$ and $v_2$, it will benefit studies of the three-dimensional structure and dynamics of the dense matter.
The cumulant method is applied to study elliptic flow ($v_2$) in Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s}=200$AGeV, with the UrQMD model. In this approach, the true event plane is known and both the non-flow effects and event-by-event spatial ($epsilon$) and $v_2$ fluctuations exist. Qualitatively, the hierarchy of $v_2$s from two, four and six-particle cumulants is consistent with the STAR data, however, the magnitude of $v_2$ in the UrQMD model is only 60% of the data. We find that the four and six-particle cumulants are good measures of the real elliptic flow over a wide range of centralities except for the most central and very peripheral events. There the cumulant method is affected by the $v_2$ fluctuations. In mid-central collisions, the four and six-particle cumulants are shown to give a good estimation of the true differential $v_2$, especially at large transverse momentum, where the two-particle cumulant method is heavily affected by the non-flow effects.
The effect of hadronic rescattering on the elliptic flow has been investigated by the Cooper-Frye hadronization model from hydrodynamic evolution following by the afterburner hadronic rescattering model for 200 GeV/c Au + Au at 20-40% centrality. It is found that the hadronic rescattering can suppress elliptic flow $v_2$ in momentum space especially in lower transverse momentum region. In addition, the hadronic rescattering effects on transverse momentum spectra and anisotropy coordinate space of hadrons are studied.
Estimates for elliptic flow in collisions of polarized light nuclei with spin $jge1$ with a heavy nucleus are presented. In such collisions the azimuthal symmetry is broken via polarization of the wave function of the light nucleus, resulting in nonzero one-body elliptic flow coefficient evaluated relative to the polarization axis. Our estimates involve experimentally well known features of light nuclei, such as their quadrupole moment and the charge radius, yielding the one-body elliptic flow coefficient in the range from 1% for collisions with the deuteron to 5% for for collisions with $^{10}$B nucleus. Prospects of addressing the issue in the upcoming fixed-target experiment at the Large Hadron Collider are discussed.
The dependence of elliptic flow at RHIC energies on the effective parton scattering cross section is calculated using the ZPC parton cascade model. We show that the v_2 measure of elliptic flow saturates early in the evolution before the hadronization transition to a rather large value ~0.05-0.15 as sigma_g varies from 2-10 mb and thus is a sensitive probe of the dynamics in the plasma phase.