This writeup is a compilation of the predictions for the forthcoming Heavy Ion Program at the Large Hadron Collider, as presented at the CERN Theory Institute ‘Heavy Ion Collisions at the LHC—Last Call for Predictions’, held from 14th May to 10th June 2007.

Following the procedure introduced by Israel and Stewart, we expand the entropy current up to the third order in the shear stress tensor π αβ and derive a novel third-order evolution equation for π αβ . This equation is solved for the one-dimensional Bjorken boost-invariant expansion. The scaling solutions for various values of the shear viscosity to the entropy density ratio η/s are shown to be in very good agreement with those obtained from kinetic transport calculations. For the pressure isotropy starting with 1 at τ 0 = 0.4 fm/c, the third-order corrections to Israel-Stewart theory are approximately 10% for η/s = 0.2 and more than a factor of 2 for η/s = 3. We also estimate all higher-order corrections to Israel-Stewart theory and demonstrate their importance in describing highly viscous matters.

We solve the relativistic Riemann problem in viscous matter using the relativistic Boltzmann equation and the relativistic causal dissipative fluid-dynamical approach of Israel and Stewart. Comparisons between these two approaches clarify and point out the regime of validity of second-order fluid dynamics in relativistic shock phenomena. The transition from ideal to viscous shocks is demonstrated by varying the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio η/s. We also find that a good agreement between these two approaches requires a Knudsen number Kn < 1/2.

The shear viscosity of a gluon gas is calculated using the Green-Kubo relation. Time correlations of the energy-momentum tensor in thermal equilibrium are extracted from microscopic simulations using a parton cascade solving various Boltzmann collision processes. We find that the pQCD based gluon bremsstrahlung described by Gunion-Bertsch processes significantly lowers the shear viscosity by a factor of 3 − 8 compared to elastic scatterings. The shear viscosity scales with the coupling as η ∼ 1/(α 2 s log(1/α s )). For constant α s the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio η/s has no dependence on temperature. Replacing the pQCD-based collision angle distribution of binary scatterings by an isotropic form decreases the shear viscosity by a factor of 3.

Using Grad's method, we calculate the entropy production and derive a formula for the secondorder shear viscosity coefficient in a one-dimensionally expanding particle system, which can also be considered out of chemical equilibrium. For a one-dimensional expansion of gluon matter with Bjorken boost invariance, the shear tensor and the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio η/s are numerically calculated by an iterative and self-consistent prescription within the second-order Israel-Stewart hydrodynamics and by a microscopic parton cascade transport theory. Compared with η/s obtained using the Navier-Stokes approximation, the present result is about 20% larger at a QCD coupling α s ∼ 0.3(with η/s ≈ 0.18) and is a factor of 2 − 3 larger at a small coupling α s ∼ 0.01. We demonstrate an agreement between the viscous hydrodynamic calculations and the microscopic transport results on η/s, except when employing a small α s . On the other hand, we demonstrate that for such small α s , the gluon system is far from kinetic and chemical equilibrium, which indicates the break down of second-order hydrodynamics because of the strong noneqilibrium evolution. In addition, for large α s (0.3 − 0.6), the Israel-Stewart hydrodynamics formally breaks down at large momentum p T > ∼ 3 GeV but is still a reasonably good approximation.