We present a quantitative study of vorticity formation in peripheral ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at √ s NN = 200 GeV by using the ECHO-QGP numerical code, implementing relativistic dissipative hydrodynamics in the causal Israel-Stewart framework in 3 + 1 dimensions with an initial Bjorken flow profile. We consider different definitions of vorticity which are relevant in relativistic hydrodynamics. After demonstrating the excellent capabilities of our code, which proves to be able to reproduce Gubser flow up to 8 fm/c, we show that, with the initial conditions needed to reproduce the measured directed flow in peripheral collisions corresponding to an average impact parameter b = 11.6 fm and with the Bjorken flow profile for a viscous Quark Gluon Plasma with η/s = 0.1 fixed, a vorticity of the order of some 10 −2 c/fm can develop at freeze-out. The ensuing polarization of baryons does not exceed 1.4 % at midrapidity. We show that the amount of developed directed flow is sensitive to both the initial angular momentum of the plasma and its viscosity.
We present ECHO-QGP, a numerical code for (3+ 1)-dimensional relativistic viscous hydrodynamics designed for the modeling of the space-time evolution of the matter created in high energy nuclear collisions. The code has been built on top of the Eulerian Conservative High-Order astrophysical code for general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamics [Del Zanna et al., Astron. Astrophys. 473, 11, 2007] and here it has been upgraded to handle the physics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. ECHO-QGP features second-order treatment of causal relativistic viscosity effects both in Minkowskian and in Bjorken coordinates; partial or complete chemical equilibrium of hadronic species before kinetic freeze-out; initial conditions based on the Glauber model, including a Monte-Carlo routine for event-by-event fluctuating initial conditions; a freeze-out procedure based on the Cooper-Frye prescription. The code is extensively validated against several test problems and results always appear accurate, as guaranteed by the combination of the conservative (shockcapturing) approach and the high-order methods employed. ECHO-QGP can be extended to include evolution of the electromagnetic fields coupled to the plasma. PACS 25.75.-q · 47.75.+f · 12.38.Mh · 25.75.LdKeywords Relativistic fluid dynamics · Relativistic heavyion collisions · Quark-gluon plasma · Methods: numerical arXiv:1305.7052v2 [nucl-th]
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.