Superhorizon fluctuations and acoustic oscillations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
- Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, Bhubaneswar 751005 (India)
We focus on the initial-state spatial anisotropies, originating at the thermalization stage, for central collisions in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We propose that a plot of the root-mean-square values of the flow coefficients {radical}(v{sub n}{sup 2}){identical_to}v{sub n}{sup rms}, calculated in a laboratory fixed coordinate system, for a large range of n from 1 to about 30, can give nontrivial information about the initial stages of the system and its evolution. We also argue that for all wavelengths {lambda} of the anisotropy (at the surface of the plasma region) much larger than the acoustic horizon size H{sub s}{sup fr} at the freeze-out stage, the resulting values of v{sub n}{sup rms} should be suppressed by a factor of order 2H{sub s}{sup fr}/{lambda}. For noncentral collisions, these arguments naturally imply a certain amount of suppression of the elliptic flow. Further, by assuming that initial flow velocities are negligible at thermalization stage, we discuss the possibility that the resulting flow could show imprints of coherent oscillations in the plot of v{sub n}{sup rms} for subhorizon modes. For gold-gold collision at 200 GeV/nucleon center-of-mass energy, these features are expected to occur for n{>=}5, with n<4 modes showing suppression due to being superhorizon. This has strong similarities with the physics of the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) resulting from inflationary density fluctuations in the universe (despite important differences such as the absence of gravity effects for the heavy-ion case). It seems possible that the statistical fluctuations due to finite multiplicity may not be able to mask such features in the flow data or at least a nontrivial overall shape of the plot of v{sub n}{sup rms} may be inferred. In that case, the successes of analysis of CMBR anisotropy power spectrum to get cosmological parameters can be applied for relativistic heavy-ion collisions to learn about various relevant parameters at the early stages of the evolving system.
- OSTI ID:
- 21191964
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. C, Nuclear Physics, Vol. 77, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.77.064902; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2813
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ANISOTROPY
CENTER-OF-MASS SYSTEM
FLUCTUATIONS
FREEZING OUT
GEV RANGE
GOLD
GRAVITATION
HEAVY ION REACTIONS
HEAVY IONS
ION-ION COLLISIONS
MULTIPLICITY
NUCLEONS
OSCILLATIONS
PLASMA
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
RELICT RADIATION
SPECTRA
SURFACES
THERMALIZATION
UNIVERSE
VELOCITY