Far-from-equilibrium search for the QCD critical point

Travis Dore, Jacquelyn Noronha-Hostler, Emma McLaughlin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Initial conditions for relativistic heavy-ion collisions may be far from equilibrium (i.e., there are large initial contributions from the shear-stress tensor and bulk pressure), but it is expected that on very short timescales the dynamics converge to a universal attractor that defines hydrodynamic behavior. Thus far, studies of this nature have only considered an idealized situation at LHC energies (high temperatures T and vanishing baryon chemical potential μB=0), but in this work, we investigate for the first time how far-from-equilibrium effects may influence experimentally driven searches for the quantum chromodynamic critical point at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We find that the path to the critical point is heavily influenced by far-from-equilibrium initial conditions where viscous effects lead to dramatically different {T,μB} trajectories through the QCD phase diagram. We compare hydrodynamic equations of motion with shear and bulk coupled together at finite μB for both Denicol-Niemi-Molnar-Rischke and phenomenological Israel-Stewart equations of motion and discuss their influence on potential attractors at finite μB and their corresponding {T,μB} trajectories.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number074017
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume102
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 23 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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