Published December 2, 2004 | Version v1
Journal article

Collective Flow signals the Quark Gluon Plasma

  • 1. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik J.W. Goethe-Universitaet, Frankfurt (Germany)
  • 2. Instituto de Fisica, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  • 3. Instituto de Fisica, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paolo (Brazil)
  • 4. SUBATECH, Universite de Nantes - IN2P3/CNRS - Ecole des Mines, Nantes (France)

Description

A critical discussion of the present status of the CERN experiments on charm dynamics and hadron collective flow is given. We emphasize the importance of the flow excitation function from 1 to 50 A·GeV: here the hydrodynamic model has predicted the collapse of the v1-flow and of the v2-flow at ∼ 10 A·GeV; at 40 A·GeV it has been recently observed by the NA49 collaboration. Since hadronic rescattering models predict much larger flow than observed at this energy we interpret this observation as potential evidence for a first order phase transition at high baryon density ρB. A detailed discussion of the collective flow as a barometer for the equation of state (EoS) of hot dense matter at RHIC follows. Additionally, detailed transport studies show that the away-side jet suppression can only partially (< 50%) be due to hadronic rescattering. We, finally, propose upgrades and second generation experiments at RHIC which inspect the first order phase transition in the fragmentation region, i.e. at μB ≅ 400 MeV (y ≅ 4 - 5), where the collapse of the proton flow should be seen in analogy to the 40 A·GeV data. The study of Jet-Wake-riding potentials and Bow shocks - caused by jets in the QGP formed at RHIC - can give further information on the equation of state (EoS) and transport coefficients of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP)

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
AIP Conference Proceedings
Journal Volume
739
Journal Issue
1
Journal Page Range
p. 305-329
ISSN
0094-243X
CODEN
APCPCS

Conference

Title
9. hadron physics and 7. relativistic aspects of nuclear physics
Acronym
Joint meeting on QCD and QCP
Dates
28 Mar - 3 Apr 2004
Place
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2004 American Institute of Physics