Eccentricity scaling of the elliptic flow of final state hadrons and thermalization at LHC

The collision of heavy nuclei at ultrarelativistic energies is the only known tool to produce quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in the laboratory. The elliptic flow (ν₂) of the emitted final state hadrons is believed to carry the signature of thermalization of the hot and dense medium produced in the collisions. ν₂ is quantified as the second Fourier coefficient of the ansiotropic azimuthal distribution of the emitted hadrons in non-central heavy-ion collisions. In summary we investigate the centrality and system size dependence of the measured ν₂ of the final state hadrons in the heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. Within a perfect thermalization scenario, ν₂ would scale with the initial eccentricity of the fireball. A breaking of the scaling behavior would indicate the presence of viscous effects and deviation from the complete thermalization, as already observed at RHIC. The foreseen contribution would extend these studies to the LHC and analyze the plethora of data collected by different experiments at different energies