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Title: Magnetic fields in heavy ion collisions: flow and charge transport

Abstract

At the earliest times after a heavy-ion collision, the magnetic field created by the spectator nucleons will generate an extremely strong, albeit rapidly decreasing in time, magnetic field. The impact of this magnetic field may have detectable consequences, and is believed to drive anomalous transport effects like the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME). We detail an exploratory study on the effects of a dynamical magnetic field on the hydrodynamic medium created in the collisions of two ultrarelativistic heavy-ions, using the framework of numerical ideal MagnetoHydroDynamics (MHD) with the ECHO-QGP code. In this study, we consider a magnetic field captured in a conducting medium, where the conductivity can receive contributions from the electromagnetic conductivity σ and the chiral magnetic conductivity σχ. We first study the elliptic flow of pions, which we show is relatively unchanged by the introduction of a magnetic field. However, by increasing the magnitude of the magnetic field, we find evidence for an enhancement of the elliptic flow in peripheral collisions. This effect is stronger at RHIC than the LHC, and it is evident already at intermediate collision centralities. Next, we explore the impact of the chiral magnetic conductivity on electric charges produced at the edges of the fireball.more » This initial σχ can be understood as a long-wavelength effective description of chiral fermion production. We then demonstrate that this chiral charge, when transported by the MHD medium, produces a charge dipole perpendicular to the reaction plane which extends a few units in rapidity. Assuming charge conservation at the freeze-out surface, we show that the produced charge imbalance can have measurable effects on some experimental observables, like v1 or hsinφi. This demonstrates the ability of a MHD fluid to transport the signature of the initial chiral magnetic fields to late times. We also comment on the limitations of the ideal MHD approximation and detail how further development of a dissipative-resistive model can provide a more realistic description of the QGP.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo; ; ; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
OSTI Identifier:
1619361
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1617686
Report Number(s):
BNL-215895-2020-JAAM
Journal ID: ISSN 1434-6044; 293; PII: 7847
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231; FG02-88ER40388; SC0012704
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields Journal Volume: 80 Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 1434-6044
Publisher:
Springer
Country of Publication:
Germany
Language:
English
Subject:
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS

Citation Formats

Inghirami, Gabriele, Mace, Mark, Hirono, Yuji, Del Zanna, Luca, Kharzeev, Dmitri E., and Bleicher, Marcus. Magnetic fields in heavy ion collisions: flow and charge transport. Germany: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7847-4.
Inghirami, Gabriele, Mace, Mark, Hirono, Yuji, Del Zanna, Luca, Kharzeev, Dmitri E., & Bleicher, Marcus. Magnetic fields in heavy ion collisions: flow and charge transport. Germany. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7847-4
Inghirami, Gabriele, Mace, Mark, Hirono, Yuji, Del Zanna, Luca, Kharzeev, Dmitri E., and Bleicher, Marcus. Tue . "Magnetic fields in heavy ion collisions: flow and charge transport". Germany. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7847-4.
@article{osti_1619361,
title = {Magnetic fields in heavy ion collisions: flow and charge transport},
author = {Inghirami, Gabriele and Mace, Mark and Hirono, Yuji and Del Zanna, Luca and Kharzeev, Dmitri E. and Bleicher, Marcus},
abstractNote = {At the earliest times after a heavy-ion collision, the magnetic field created by the spectator nucleons will generate an extremely strong, albeit rapidly decreasing in time, magnetic field. The impact of this magnetic field may have detectable consequences, and is believed to drive anomalous transport effects like the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME). We detail an exploratory study on the effects of a dynamical magnetic field on the hydrodynamic medium created in the collisions of two ultrarelativistic heavy-ions, using the framework of numerical ideal MagnetoHydroDynamics (MHD) with the ECHO-QGP code. In this study, we consider a magnetic field captured in a conducting medium, where the conductivity can receive contributions from the electromagnetic conductivity σ and the chiral magnetic conductivity σχ. We first study the elliptic flow of pions, which we show is relatively unchanged by the introduction of a magnetic field. However, by increasing the magnitude of the magnetic field, we find evidence for an enhancement of the elliptic flow in peripheral collisions. This effect is stronger at RHIC than the LHC, and it is evident already at intermediate collision centralities. Next, we explore the impact of the chiral magnetic conductivity on electric charges produced at the edges of the fireball. This initial σχ can be understood as a long-wavelength effective description of chiral fermion production. We then demonstrate that this chiral charge, when transported by the MHD medium, produces a charge dipole perpendicular to the reaction plane which extends a few units in rapidity. Assuming charge conservation at the freeze-out surface, we show that the produced charge imbalance can have measurable effects on some experimental observables, like v1 or hsinφi. This demonstrates the ability of a MHD fluid to transport the signature of the initial chiral magnetic fields to late times. We also comment on the limitations of the ideal MHD approximation and detail how further development of a dissipative-resistive model can provide a more realistic description of the QGP.},
doi = {10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7847-4},
journal = {European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields},
number = 3,
volume = 80,
place = {Germany},
year = {Tue Mar 31 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Tue Mar 31 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7847-4

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Cited by: 53 works
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