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DynamicalEvolutionofHeavy-IonCollisions-2022 (Marked)
DynamicalEvolutionofHeavy-IonCollisions-2022 (Marked)
Relativistic viscous hydrodynamics and transport models are the primary tools to
study the real-time dynamics of relativistic nuclear collisions. At high collision ener-
gies, the hybrid approach that combines hydrodynamics with hadronic transport
achieves quantitative descriptions of many experimental observables across differ-
ent systems. Transport models with both parton and hadron phases such as AMPT and
PHSD (Parton–Hadron–String Dynamics) also describe many experimental observ-
ables including anisotropic flows. In Sect. 3.1, we focus on recent developments on
the initial condition in these frameworks for nuclear collisions at energies relevant
Y. Nara
Akita International University, Yuwa, Akita-city 010-1292, Japan
J. Y. Jia
Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
J. Y. Jia · C. Shen
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA
C. Shen
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48201, USA
L. G. Pang · S. S. Shi
Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
Z. W. Lin
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA
H. Elfner
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Planckstr. 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Ruth-Moufang-Strasse 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main,
Germany
Goethe University, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
for high baryon densities. In Sect. 3.2, we discuss recent theoretical developments to
describe the system evolution in a baryon-rich environment. Fluctuation dynamics
in the hydrodynamics framework are discussed in Sect. 3.3. Experimental flow mea-
surements and related phenomenological studies are discussed in Sect. 3.4. Finally,
Sect. 3.5 gives a summary of the chapter.
In the study of QGP properties at high baryon densities, key variables of the initial
condition include the energy–momentum current and net-baryon density produced
in relativistic nuclear collisions. Their initial three-dimensional (3D) distributions
and the subsequent time evolution determine the trajectory of the events on the
temperature–baryon chemical potential phase diagram. For collision energies such
as those in the Beam Energy Scan program at RHIC [1–4], the event trajectories
relative to the location of the possible QCD critical point [5, 6] could significantly
affect the experimental observables and their sensitivities to the critical point [5].
For heavy-ion collisions at O(10) GeV that can create high baryon densities, one
should consider the finite nuclear thickness along the beam directions because the
Lorentz contraction factor is not very large [7–9]. The finite nuclear thickness will
obviously affect the initial densities [9–11]. Furthermore, it will lead to a significant
time duration of the initial particle and energy production; therefore, one cannot use
a fixed proper time to describe the initial condition for hydrodynamics-based models
but needs to use a dynamical initialization scheme [12]. It is also essential for the
initial condition to properly describe baryon stopping after the initial encounter of
the colliding nuclei since this directly affects the net-baryon density [13–15].
Helmholtz Research Academy Hesse for FAIR (HFHF), GSI Helmholtz Center, Campus
Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 12, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
L. Yan
Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Y. Yin
Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Gansu 730000, China
P. F. Zhuang (B)
Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
e-mail: zhuangpf@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
M. Stephanov
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 137
2R A
dt = (3.1)
sinh ycm
for them to completely cross each other in the center-of-mass frame of the two nuclei
in the hard-sphere approximation. Here, R A is the hard-sphere radius of the nucleus
and ycm is the rapidity of the projectile nucleus. For central Au+Au collisions at
√
sNN = 50 GeV, for example, dt ≈ 0.5 fm/c is comparable to the typical value of
the parton formation time or thermalization time when one takes R A = 1.12 A1/3 fm.
Therefore, one may expect the effect from finite nuclear thickness to be significant
√
for central Au+Au collisions at sNN ≤ 50 GeV [9].
Semi-analytical methods [9, 11] have been developed to calculate the effect of
finite nuclear thickness on the initial energy density, which is crucial for determining
the initial temperature (and the net-baryon chemical potential at lower energies) of
the produced QGP. Traditionally, the Bjorken formula [16] has been the standard
semi-analytical tool for estimating the initial energy density in the central rapidity
region at the formation time of the QGP:
1 d ET
! B j (τ ) = . (3.2)
A T τ dy
In the above, A T represents the full transverse area of the overlap volume, and
d E T /dy is the initial rapidity density of the transverse energy at mid-rapidity, which
is often approximated with the experimental d E T /dy value in the final state, and τ
is often taken as the proper formation time of the produced quanta (τ F ). However,
a serious limitation of the Bjorken formula results from the fact that it neglects the
finite thickness of the colliding nuclei along the beam direction z, which shall lead
to a finite duration time and a finite longitudinal width in z, for the initial energy
production. One, therefore, expects that the Bjorken formula may break down when
the crossing time is not small compared to the formation time [17].
With the semi-analytical methods that include the finite nuclear thickness, the
initial energy density !(τ ) averaged over the transverse area of the overlap region
as a function of time, including its maximum value !max , has been calculated. These
studies [9, 11] have yielded the following qualitative conclusions: the initial energy
density after considering the finite nuclear thickness approaches the Bjorken formula
at large formation time τ F and/or high collision energies; at low collision energies,
the initial energy density has a lower maximum, evolves longer, and is less sensitive
138 H. Elfner et al.
Fig. 3.1 The maximum initial energy density for central Au+Au collisions as a function of collision
energy at τ F = 0.1, 0.3, and 0.9 fm/c from the improved semi-analytical method that includes the
finite nuclear thickness and the Bjorken formula. Dot-dashed line represents the finite thickness
results at τ F = 0
to τ F than the Bjorken formula. Figure 3.1 shows the calculated maximum initial
energy density for central Au+Au collisions as a function of the collision energy,
where one can observe certain features of the above conclusions. The three solid
curves from top to bottom represent the !max values for τ F = 0.1, 0.3, and 0.9 fm/c,
respectively; while the three dashed curves represent the corresponding results from
the Bjorken energy density formula. Numerically, it is found that the Bjorken energy
density formula breaks down (i.e., is different by 20% or more from the results that
include the finite nuclear thickness) when dt > τ F , as one may expect. One also sees
that at low energies the maximum energy density increases with the collision energy
much faster than the Bjorken case. In addition, it is found that the maximum energy
density is finite at τ F = 0 at any energy (dot-dashed curve) [11], where in contrast
the Bjorken energy density formula is divergent as τ F → 0.
The solution of the initial energy density [11] is also found to possess an approx-
imate scaling property, which leads to scaling relations such as the following:
√ ! √ "
!max
AA (for τ F , sNN ) = !max Au
AuAu for τ F = (197/A)
1/3
τ F , sNN . (3.3)
This scaling means that the τ F -dependence of !max also gives the A-dependence of
!max . As a result, the weaker τ F -dependence of !max at low energies after considering
the finite nuclear thickness means a slower increase of !max with A. In addition, the
√
peak initial energy density at τ F = 0 is independent of A but only depends on sNN .
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 139
For heavy-ion collisions at O(10) GeV collision energy, the projectile’s participant
nucleons have 2–3 fm/c to pass through the target nucleus as illustrated in Fig. 3.2.
Along their trajectories, they collide with the target’s nucleons either coherently or
incoherently at different space–time positions. Therefore, the energy and momentum
from individual nucleon–nucleon collisions are expected to be thermalized at differ-
ent times. The local equilibration has been investigated [18], and at lower energies,
there is a significant part of the system already close enough to equilibrium before
the passing time of the nuclei is reached. In addition, there is a centrality dependence
of the amount of thermalized cells as a function of time. These energy–momentum
currents need to be treated as source terms to continuously feed the macroscopic
hydrodynamic fields during the nuclei overlap. Generally, such an approach is called
the dynamical initialization scheme [8, 19]. It interweaves the initial collision stage
of heavy-ion collisions with relativistic hydrodynamics on a local basis as shown in
Fig. 3.2.
The initial collision geometry can be modeled by the Monte Carlo Glauber model
[8] as well as more sophisticated transport frameworks such as AMPT [20], JAM
(Jet Aa Microscopic transport model) [21], SMASH [22], UrQMD [23, 24], PHSD
[25], and GiBUU (Giessen Boltzmann–Uehling–Uhlenbeck) [26]. For hydrodynamic
models, these initial energy–momentum currents including their spatial and temporal
dependencies are essential inputs for the subsequent hydrodynamical evolution of
√
Fig. 3.2 A sketch of the space–time structure for relativistic heavy-ion collisions at sNN ∼
O(10) GeV. The dynamical initialization connects the three-dimensional collision geometry with
hydrodynamics. The figure is taken from Ref. [12]
140 H. Elfner et al.
the QGP matter [19, 27–30]. The hydrodynamic equation of motion needs to be
solved together with external source terms,
∂µ T µν = Jsource
ν
, (3.4)
µ
∂µ J = ρsource . (3.5)
√
For collision energies sNN ≤ 5 GeV, the nuclei overlapping time is comparable to
the lifetime of the fireball. The initial state, hydrodynamics, and hadronic scatterings
cannot be separated. One needs to interface all these phases together in a concurrent
way [30].
5 4.0
3 2.5
τ (fm/c)
t (fm/c)
2.0
2 1.5
nucleon 1.0
1 0-5% Au+Au decelerated
@200 GeV ∆τ = 0.5 fm/c 0.5
0 0.0
−5.0 −2.5 0.0 2.5 5.0 −6 −4 −2 0 2 4 6
z (fm) ηs
5 4.0
0-5% Au+Au@19.6GeV
3.5
4
3.0
3 2.5
τ (fm/c)
t (fm/c)
2.0
2 1.5
nucleon 1.0
1 0-5% Au+Au decelerated
@ 19.6 GeV ∆τ = 0.5 fm/c 0.5
0 0.0
−5.0 −2.5 0.0 2.5 5.0 −6 −4 −2 0 2 4 6
z (fm) ηs
Fig. 3.3 The energy–momentum strings’ space–time distributions in t–z and τ –η coordinates in
0–5% central Au+Au collisions at 200 and 19.6 GeV. The figure is taken from Ref. [8]
The initial condition of the AMPT model [20] is based on the HIJING two-component
model [36]. The primary nucleon–nucleon interactions between the two incoming
nuclei are divided into a soft component described by the Lund string fragmentation
model [37] and a hard component of mini-jets described by perturbative QCD. This
generates a fluctuating initial condition that includes, for example, non-zero initial-
state momentum correlations as well as different harmonic components of the initial
spatial geometry. In the default version of the AMPT model [20, 38, 39], only the
mini-jet partons enter the parton cascade [40]. The rest of the excited strings are
considered to be idle during the parton phase, and they combine with the mini-jet
142 H. Elfner et al.
partons after the parton phase to fragment into initial hadrons that go through further
hadronic interactions. On the other hand, at high energies, the initial condition from
the string melting version of the AMPT model [20, 41, 42] should be applicable
since one expects the initial matter created in the overlap volume to have a high-
enough energy density for the creation of the quark–gluon plasma. In the string
melting version, the initial state essentially consists of the overlap region in parton
degrees of freedom in addition to spectator nucleons. The initial partons come from
the decomposition of hadrons from string fragmentation of the HIJING model into
valence quarks and antiquarks and thus do not include currently any gluons. Almost
all the energy in the overlap volume is converted via string melting to partons and
thus enters the parton cascade [40] for possible scatterings. Because of this and
the quark coalescence mechanism, the string melting AMPT model [20, 41, 42] is
able to reproduce the large anisotropic flows observed in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion
collisions with a rather small parton cross section of a few mb.
To include the finite nuclear thickness, the initial condition of the string melting
AMPT model has been extended [9] to specify the longitudinal coordinate z 0 and
time t0 of each excited string in a heavy-ion event, which then serve as the origin of
the partons produced from the melting of the excited string. Note that in the normal
string melting AMPT model [20, 41, 42], the longitudinal coordinate z 0 and time
t0 of each excited string in the initial state are both set to zero, which would be
correct only at very high energies. After including the finite nuclear thickness in the
model, one obtains the energy densities (solid curves) in Fig. 3.4; at low energies,
they are very different from the AMPT results that neglect the finite nuclear thickness
(dashed curves). One also sees that the increase in the maximum initial energy density
with the collision energy is much faster than the case that neglects the finite nuclear
Fig. 3.4 AMPT results of the average energy density at central space-time rapidity for central
Au+Au collisions at a 4.84 GeV, b 11.5 GeV, and c 27 GeV when including (solid curves) or
excluding (dashed curves) the finite nuclear thickness
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 143
thickness, which is consistent with the analytical finding that the Bjorken formula
overestimates the maximum energy density more at lower energies [9, 11].
Strings from the AMPT initial condition have varying lengths along the space–
time rapidity. The strings are mainly formed by the stretching between quark–
antiquark or quark–diquark pairs in the dual parton model. Although nucleons in the
projectile or target have the same longitudinal momentum and rapidity, their com-
posite quarks or diquarks sampled from parton distribution functions have different
longitudinal momenta. As a result, the two ends of each string fluctuate strongly
from one string to another. After string melting, the extent of the space–time rapidity
of each string also fluctuates and is named as “string length fluctuations”. These
fluctuations originated from the parton distribution function provide one source of
fluctuations along the longitudinal direction. The mean “string length” is different
for different beam energies, and the fluctuations around the projectile and the target
become very strong for low beam energies as shown in Fig. 3.5.
Hadronic transport models, such as UrQMD or SMASH, provide the space–time
information of produced hadrons after string fragmentation with the Lund model
[44]. Those initial distributions of hadrons include event-by-event fluctuations from
collision geometry as well as from string fragmentation. They provide distributions
of energy–momentum currents and conserved charge densities. One can evolve the
collision system with hadronic transport for a short amount of time to simulate the
heat-up phase of the QGP and match the coarse-grained energy–momentum tensor
T µν to hydrodynamics at a given proper time after the two colliding nuclei pass
each other [7, 45]. In this approach, non-trivial pre-equilibrium flow profiles will be
developed from the hadronic transport model.
The separation of the high-density part (core) and the low-density part (corona)
is significant for the description of the centrality dependence of nuclear collisions at
SPS and RHIC energies [46]. Core-corona separation has also been implemented into
the UrQMD hybrid approach [47], and it is shown that such a core-corona separation
improves the description of experimental data, especially strange particle ratios and
flow.
Alternatively, a different approach treats the produced hadrons as local energy–
momentum sources and dynamically feeds them to the hydrodynamic fields [29]. This
approach considers only primary collisions between the nucleons in the incoming
nuclei. The produced hadrons from the nucleon–nucleon collisions first free-stream
by a short amount of time before depositing their energy, momentum, and charges
into the hydrodynamic fields. A similar dynamical initialization framework is also
applied for the parton system at LHC energies [48, 49].
A dynamical coupling of the microscopic transport model and macroscopic hydro-
dynamics is implemented in the JAM model [30]; it solves the time evolution of a
particle–fluid system. The fluidization happens by the same method as a dynamical
initialization, and fluid elements are converted into particles by using the Cooper–
Frye formula when local energy density becomes smaller than a particlization energy
density. Fluid–particle conversation occurs locally at each time step; it thus incorpo-
rates a dynamical core-corona separation.
144 H. Elfner et al.
Fig. 3.5 The fluctuations along the space–time rapidity from the AMPT initial condition for
√ √
s N N = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC and s N N = 2.76 TeV Pb+Pb collisions at LHC.
The ends of the strings fluctuate more strongly at low beam energies than high beam energies. The
figure is taken from Ref. [43]
In the left panel of Fig. 3.6, the time evolution of the energy density from JAM
√
hybrid simulations of central Pb+Pb collisions at sNN = 6.4 GeV is plotted. The
dynamical fluid–particle conversion shows that hydrodynamical evolution already
starts before two nuclei pass through each other. The right panel of Fig. 3.6 shows the
time evolution of the fluid fraction in the central region |z| < 1 fm for central Au+Au
√ √
collisions at s N N = 2.7, 3.3, and 4.9 GeV and Pb+Pb collisions at s N N = 12.4
and 17.3 GeV. In the calculations, fluidization energy density e f = 0.5 GeV/fm3
is assumed. The fluid fraction increases slowly with time at lower beam energies.
As beam energy becomes higher, the fluid fraction increases rapidly, and the fluid–
particle conversion process becomes closer to a single thermalization time.
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 145
Fig. 3.6 Time evolution of the energy density at the coordinate origin (x, y, z) = (0, 0, 0) in Pb+Pb
√
collisions at sNN = 6.4 GeV (left panel) and the fractions of the fluid energy at the central region
√
|z| < 1.0 fm (right panel) from JAM hybrid simulations of central Au+Au at s N N = 2.7, 3.3, and
√
4.9 GeV and Pb+Pb collisions at s N N = 12.4 and 17.3 GeV. The figure is taken from Ref. [30]
In this section, we will discuss recent theoretical developments to describe the colli-
sion system’s evolution in a baryon-rich environment. We start with highlighting pro-
gresses in studying different equations of state (EOS) in microscopic transport models
and an improved parton–hadron interface in the AMPT model. For the strongly cou-
pled QGP phase, the system is more effectively described by macroscopic relativistic
viscous hydrodynamics. We will discuss the essential ingredients to generalize the
fluid-dynamic framework in the high baryon density region and how it interfaces with
the microscopic transport models in the hadronic phase. Lastly, recent advancements
to constrain QCD EOS from machine learning techniques are highlighted.
Transport model simulates the Boltzmann-type collision term in a Monte Carlo fash-
ion; thus, the equation of state (EOS) in the cascade model is expected to be close to a
free hadron or parton gas. It is possible to implement a different EOS in a microscopic
transport model by including mean field. There are two approaches; the Boltzmann–
Uehling–Uhlenbeck (BUU) or Vlasov–Uehling–Uhlenbeck (VUU) model [50–52],
which were developed to simulate a space–time evolution of one particle distribution
function f (x, p):
∂f
+ v · ∇r f − ∇r U · ∇ p f = Icoll (3.6)
∂t
where Icoll is a collision integral including the Pauli blocking. If Icoll = 0, one obtains
the Vlasov equation. U is a mean-field potential. The Skyrme parametrization is often
used [53, 54]:
146 H. Elfner et al.
#
f (x, p ( )
d 3 p(
γ
U (ρ B , p) = αρ B + βρ B +C (3.7)
1 + ( p − p( )2 /!2
where the baryon density ρ B -dependent potential has two terms: α is attractive and β
is repulsive, and a momentum p-dependent part. Another approach is called quantum
molecular dynamics (QMD)[55, 56], an N -body theory, and can be used for event-by-
event simulations. The molecular dynamics is a simulation that solves Hamilton’s
equations of motion for N -body system. QMD is an extension of the molecular
dynamics approach by including a collision term. QMD also uses the same Skyrme-
type potential. Later relativistic QMD (RQMD) was formulated, in which the Skyrme
potential is implemented as a Lorentz scalar [57–60]. A relativistic transport approach
based on the relativistic mean field (RMF) has been developed, called RVUU [61–
64], RBUU [26, 65, 66], or RLV [67]. In these covariant approaches, relativistic
meson mean fields are used instead of non-relativistic Skyrme potential:
$ ∗ %
p ∗µ ∂µ + ( pν∗ F µν + m ∗ ∂ µ m ∗ )∂µp f (x, p ∗ ) = Icoll (3.8)
Since the AMPT model [20] has both parton and hadron phases, a hadronization
model is needed to convert the parton matter into a hadron matter at the end of the
parton phase or the QGP lifetime of each event. In the default version of the AMPT
model [38, 39], after parton scatterings are over, the mini-jet partons recombine with
their parent strings and then fragment to initial hadrons via the Lund string fragmen-
tation. On the other hand, in the string melting version of the AMPT model [41], a
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 147
In the above, d M and d B represent, respectively, the relative distance among the two
or three coalescing partons in their rest frame, and r B M is the coalescence parameter
that controls the relative probability of a quark forming a baryon versus that forming
a meson [84]. This way the new quark coalescence allows a quark the freedom to
form a meson or a baryon depending on the distance from the coalescence partner(s);
this algorithm is thus more physical. The improved quark coalescence model better
describes baryon observables in general, especially the (anti)baryon pT spectra and
antibaryon-to-baryon ratios for multi-strange baryons [84]. It is also found to be
important for the description of two-particle angular correlations in pp and p-Pb
collisions at LHC energies [85], particularly the near side anti-correlation of baryon
pairs as observed in the experiment.
∂µ T µν = 0, (3.10)
µ
∂µ Ji = 0. (3.11)
148 H. Elfner et al.
T µν = !u µ u ν − (P + ")#µν + π µν (3.12)
Here, ! is the local energy density, n i is the conserved charge density, P(!, n i )
is the thermal pressure given by the equation of state (EOS), and u µ is the flow
velocity. The off-equilibrium aspects are characterized by the shear viscous tensor
µ
π µν , the bulk viscous pressure ", and the charge diffusion currents qi . In heavy-ion
collisions, there are multiple conserved charge currents, namely the net baryon B,
net-strangeness S, and net electric charges Q, carried by fluid constituents.
The hydrodynamic equation of motion needs to be solved together with the fluid’s
equation of state P(!, n i ). At zero net-charge density, the QGP’s equation of state
can be computed from lattice QCD [86, 87]. It is smoothly connected with hadron
resonance gas (HRG) EOS at low temperature. The Taylor expansion technique has
been employed to extend the QCD EOS to finite densities [88, 89]. Lattice QCD
calculations show that the phase transition between QGP and HRG remains as a
smooth crossover for the region where µ B /T ≤ 2. Reference [90] gives a detailed
review on the recent progress in constructing QCD EOS at finite densities.
To continue our discussion of the hydrodynamic evolution equations, we present
the second-order causal constitutive relations for the shear and bulk viscous parts
and the diffusion for net-baryon current. We use the expressions derived in [91, 92],
given by
˙ + " = −ζ θ − δ"" " θ + λ"π π µν σµν ,
τ" " (3.14)
*µ *µ
τπ π̇ *µν+ + π µν = 2η σ µν − δππ π µν θ + ϕ7 πα π ν+α − τππ πα σ ν+α + λπ" " σ µν , (3.15)
µB µB
τq q̇ *µ+ + q µ = κ B ∇ µ − δqq q µ θ − λqq qν σ µν + lqπ #µν ∂λ π λ ν − λqπ π µν ∇ν , (3.16)
T T
µν
where A*µ+ = #µν Aν and A*µν+ = #αβ Aαβ , θ = ∇µ u µ is the expansion rate, and
& '
µν 1 µ ν ν µ 2 µν α
σ = ∇ u + ∇ u − # (∇α u ) (3.17)
2 3
is the velocity shear tensor, with the spatial projection operator ∇µ ≡ #µν ∂ ν =
µν
(gµν − u µ u ν )∂ ν . The higher rank spatial projection operator is defined as #αβ ≡
1
2
[#µ α #ν β + #µ β #ν α ] − 13 #µν #αβ . In Eqs. (3.14)–(3.16), the viscous stress ten-
sor and diffusion current are driven by their corresponding thermodynamic forces,
θ, σ µν , and ∇ µ µTB , and ζ, η, and κ B are the medium’s bulk and shear viscosity and
net-baryon diffusion coefficient, respectively. The evolution of the viscous stress ten-
sor and diffusion current is controlled by their relaxation times, τπ , τ" , and τq . The
DNMR theory included additional second-order terms in spatial gradient together
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 149
with their transport coefficients [91, 92]. Some of them coupled the π µν , ", and q µ
with each other in their evolution equations. Moreover, because there are multiple
conserved charges in QCD and quarks in their flavor eigenstates carry a mixture of
these quantum charges (B, S, Q), the charge diffusion currents will mix with each
other and the diffusion coefficient κ becomes a 3 × 3 matrix [93, 94]. Theoretical
frameworks that incorporate diffusion effects on multiple conserved charge currents
are being developed [95].
The three-fluid hydrodynamics (3FH) simulation [96, 97] treats the collision of
two fluids, and during the collision, a third fluid was developed by particle production.
Thus, it incorporates the effects of EOS including the compression stages of heavy-
ion collisions. The 3FH has been used to analyze heavy-ion collisions in the high
baryon density region.
As hydrodynamics evolves the system to dilute regions with energy density below 0.5
GeV/fm3 , the strongly coupled collective description becomes less and less valid. In
these regions, we can switch to a hadronic transport model to describe the dynamics
microscopically. A review of hybrid approach applications to lower beam energies
is available in [98]. This switching requires to map individual fluid cells to particles,
dubbed the particlization procedure. The conversion from fluid cells to particles uses
the Cooper–Frye procedure,
gi d 3 p µ
d N (x, p) = p dσµ ( f 0 + δ f ), (3.18)
(2π)3 E
supervised learning where the machine is trained to classify labeled events into two
different categories if they are generated with two different EOS. The inputs to the
machine learning algorithms are the EOStypes used as labels and the four-momenta of
final-state particles in each single event from relativistic hydrodynamic simulations.
This procedure is employed to identify crossover from first-order phase transition
[106, 107], to distinguish the Maxwell construction from Spinodal construction in
the first-order phase transition region [108], and to classify hard and soft EOS at
high-density region [109]. At the same time, an unsupervised auto-encoder is used
to classify nuclear liquid–gas transitions [110].
Recently, a dynamical edge-convolution neural network is constructed to look
for critical correlations and self-similarity in the momentum distribution of final-
state hadrons[111]. As shown in Fig. 3.7, the input to the network is the particle
list and the outputs have two branches. One branch has one neuron in the output
layer, whose value represents the probability that critical correlations are encoded in
some of the final-state hadrons. The other branch has the same number of neurons
as input particles, whose values are used to tag whether a particle belongs to a signal
or background. The dynamical edge-convolution block repeats two times. It first
looks for the k-nearest-neighbor of each particle in momentum space. Here, the
Euclidean distance between each pair of particles is computed, and the k-nearest-
neighbor of one particle stands for the k number of particles that are closest to the
chosen particle. The information of each particle and its neighbors is sent to the
edge-convolution block to get a new representation of each particle, which is simply
… … … … … 1D CNN …
Fig. 3.7 A dynamical edge-convolution neural network developed to identify events with critical
correlations and to tag signal particles
152 H. Elfner et al.
Exploring and characterizing the properties of hot and dense QCD matter in heavy-ion
collisions has been one of the main motivations for developing fluctuating hydro-
dynamics in the heavy-ion theory community. It was known long ago [113, 114]
that fluctuations of the produced hadron multiplicities, in particular, those of pro-
tons, would be enhanced near the conjectured QCD critical point. It was appreciated
at about the same time that the critical fluctuations would inescapably fall out of
equilibrium in the expanding fireball created in a heavy-ion collision because of
the critical slowing down [115]. This calls for the building-up of the dynamical
framework to describe off-equilibrium critical fluctuations based on the fluctuating
hydrodynamics. Besides studying the critical dynamics, the enhanced thermody-
namic fluctuations near the phase boundary may also contribute significantly to the
behavior of transport coefficients and equation of state [116, 117]. More recently,
the study of hydrodynamic fluctuations has allowed characterizing the evolution of
the QGP properties as a function of frequency and wavelength in certain contexts.
Hydrodynamic fluctuations may also be significant in the far-from-equilibrium QGP
created in the initial stages of both large and small colliding systems.
The development of the theory of hydrodynamic fluctuations can be dated back to
the 1950s, when Landau and Lifshitz formulated their stochastic approach. Remark-
ably, this is still an area under active research. In Sect. 3.3.1, we shall briefly review
three main approaches to fluctuating hydrodynamics, with an emphasis on the two
recent ones. We will also explain the qualitative features of hydrodynamic fluctua-
tions. The subsequent section, Sect. 3.3.2, provides a discussion on the application
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 153
of fluctuating hydrodynamic to the search for the QCD critical point, while its other
possible applications will be discussed in Sect. 3.3.3. In Sect. 3.3.4, we list a number
of open questions.
Fig. 3.8 An illustration of the key elements and their mutual relations in fluctuation dynamics.
Consider a fluid under expansion (or external disturbance): the real-time fluctuation would lag
behind the equilibrium expectation and back-react on the equation of state (EOS) and transport
coefficients which control the hydrodynamic force that drives the fluid flow. Meanwhile, the flow
will transport off-equilibrium fluctuation in space. The goal of fluctuating hydrodynamics is to
describe such an intertwined dynamical process
154 H. Elfner et al.
#η $fluct p∗3
∼ . (3.20)
η $mic s
∂µ T µν = F ν (3.21)
where T µν denotes part of the stress–energy tensor which can be expressed in terms
of one-point function of hydrodynamic variables such as energy density ! and flow
velocity u µ through the usual constitutive relation. The noise force F µ is assumed
to be local, i.e., *F(t, x) F(t ( , x ( )+ ∝ δ(t − t ( )δ 3 (x − x ( ) (suppressing the Lorentz
index), with the magnitude of noise–noise correlation fixed by the fluctuation–
dissipation theorem. The extension of “stochastic approach” to relativistic hydro-
dynamics can be found in Ref. [120].
More recently, there are rapid developments in studying the same physics using the
“deterministic approach”, see, e.g., Refs. [118, 121–128]. In this approach, the wave-
number-dependent correlation functions of hydrodynamic variables are treated as
slow variables in addition to hydrodynamic ones. The stochastic equations are traded
off by a set of coupled deterministic equations among those correlation functions and
conventional hydrodynamic variables. This approach successfully describes a num-
ber of non-trivial off-equilibrium effects, including the hydrodynamic tail [118],
and has been formulated for both Bjorken-expanding background and general fluid
background [125]. Simulations using the “stochastic approach” is quite straightfor-
ward but numerically demanding. Meanwhile, the “deterministic approach” costs
less numerical resource but relies on a non-trivial formulation.
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 155
where Ihydro can be constructed based on the symmetry and physical constraints
of the system, as was shown explicitly in Refs. [129, 130] (see also the lecture
notes [131]). Although the formalism of Refs. [129, 130] has only been published a
few years ago, the studies based on this formalism have already uncovered several
interesting new phenomena in problems that were extensively studied before [132,
133]. To date, this formalism has already helped considerably clarify aspects of the
theoretical structures of hydrodynamic fluctuations. In our view, this new frame-
work has many potential applications in the future, particularly in the perspective of
implementation in quantum computing. Since such formalism does not depend on
any long-wavelength expansion, it may also serve as a basis for studying QGP at a
mesoscopic scale with suitable extension [129].
The existence of a critical point manifests itself through large correlations and
enhanced fluctuations. More quantitatively, let us consider (the Wigner transfor-
mation of) the two-point function for the fluctuation of the order parameter field
M(t, x):
#
φ Q (t, x) ≡ d 3 y *δ M (t, x − y/2) δ M (t, x + y/2)+ e−i y· Q . (3.23)
Here, φ Q (t, x) describes the magnitude of the critical fluctuation at wavelength 1/Q.
For a critical system in equilibrium, the equilibrium expectation takes form1
1
φ̄(Q) ∼ , (3.24)
ξ −2 + Q2
1 For illustrative purpose, we only show the approximate expression here. See Ref. [122] and
references therein for more details.
156 H. Elfner et al.
and the expression for J µ is similar; see Ref. [122] for details. Note that the gen-
eralized pressure p(+) depends not only on the hydrodynamic variables ε and n B ,
the energy, and baryon number densities, but also on the additional Hydro+ variable
φ Q (t, x). Since the hydrodynamic (collective) flow is induced by the gradient of the
generalized pressure, the bulk evolution in Hydro+ is intrinsically coupled with that
of φ Q (t, x). Therefore, Hydro+ couples LWF with hydrodynamics self-consistently.
See Refs. [125, 126] for further refinements and improvements on Hydro+ formal-
ism.
There are two recent exploratory simulations, Refs. [138, 139], within the the
Hydro+ framework. These are done in dynamical settings similar to that encountered
in a heavy-ion collision albeit with simplified system geometry and equation of state.
We now discuss the main lessons learned from those simulations.
First, we observe that φ(Q) at small Q stays at its initial value. This clearly
demonstrates the crucial role of the conservation law: φ(Q = 0) corresponds to the
fluctuation of the order parameter averaged over the whole volume. If the order
parameter is associated with conserved densities, the fluctuation at Q = 0 cannot
evolve at all. Second, we see that the radial flow transports fluctuations by advection,
and quantitative studies must consider the advection effects. This is seen in Fig. 3.9
(right) where we show φ versus r at the representative value of Q = 0.4 fm−1 from
[138]. We observe the peak in equilibrium expectation of φ̄(Q) moving inward
from early time to later time. On the other hand, the combination of two out-of-
equilibrium effects determines the spatial dependence of the fully dynamical φ(Q):
(a) the “memory”/“lag behind” effect that is visible in the difference between the
peak in the equilibrium expectation (dashed curve) and the actual φ; (b) the advection
in the outward-flowing fluid that carries the peak in the fluctuations.
Fig. 3.9 The magnitude of the critical fluctuations φ(Q) (with appropriate normalization) versus
the radius r at a representative momentum Q from Ref. [138] (left) and Ref. [139] (right). In all
figures, dashed (solid) lines show the equilibrium (non-equilibrium) values
158 H. Elfner et al.
Finally, we note that those non-equilibrium contributions from the slow modes
to bulk matter properties (e.g., entropy and pressure) are generically small. In both
studies, the off-equilibrium slow-mode contribution #s to the entropy density is
generically of the order:
#s
∼ O(10−5 −10−4 ). (3.27)
s
This can be understood by comparing the phase-space volume of off-equilibrium
critical modes Q 3neq /(2π)3 with the typical entropy density s :
) *) *3
#s 1 T3 Q neq
∼ , (3.28)
s (2π)3 s T
where Q neq ∼ ξ −1 denotes the typical momentum which is not in equilibrium. Using
the benchmark value s = (4π 2 (Nc2 − 1) + 21π 2 N f )T 3 which corresponds to the
entropy density of an ideal QGP at zero baryon chemical potential, we arrived at
(#s/s) ∼ O(10−4 ). Interestingly, the above analysis on back-reaction is consistent
with the study of the bulk viscosity near the QCD critical point in Ref. [140]. From
a practical perspective, the smallness of back-reaction effects suggests that one may
neglect the back-reaction in future phenomenological modelings, which will help
significantly reduce the computational cost.
The “deterministic approach” is not the only possible formalism for the study of
critical fluctuations. The authors of Ref. [141] consider the fluctuations of the net-
baryon density near the critical point based upon simulating stochastic equations. In
this benchmark calculation, both the expected dynamical scaling behavior and the
impact of critical slowing down are observed.
The effects of hydrodynamic fluctuations might be of importance both near and away
from the critical points. Consequently, a theoretical understanding of fluctuating
hydrodynamics is expected to have broad applications in various aspects of heavy-
ion collisions. In this section, we shall discuss several examples.
The study of fluctuation dynamics may help us understand the behavior of trans-
port coefficients in the crossover regime of the QCD phase diagram. This is because
the magnitude of fluctuations would be enhanced around the phase boundary. For
example, the evolution of the fluctuations of conserved charges is investigated in
Refs. [127, 128] in order to constrain the charge diffusive constant of the quark–
gluon plasma from experimental measurements of the balance function at top RHIC
energy. In Ref. [121], the relation between the non-trivial behavior of the bulk vis-
cosity in the crossover region and the hydrodynamic fluctuations has been analyzed.
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 159
The correlators of stress–energy tensor and charge current are important for char-
acterizing both the static and transport properties of a medium. Based on the theory
of hydrodynamic fluctuations, one can study the effects of fluctuations on those
correlators. The results of doing so may be viewed as finite frequency and finite
gradient corrections to the transport coefficients and equation of state. The investi-
gation along this line helps reveal how those properties would evolve as a function
of relevant scale as well as non-trivial analytical structure induced by fluctuation
dynamics. Those effects might be relevant for the initial stages of the fireball as well
as for small colliding systems.
Finally, we note that with suitable generalizations, the formalism of fluctuating
hydrodynamics can also be used to study hydrodynamics with chiral anomaly which
couple non-conserved axial charge densities to hydrodynamic modes [142].
We have reviewed the application of the fluctuation dynamics to the study of the
QCD phase diagram, by examining the problem in two broad classes—near the
QCD critical point and away from the critical point. In both cases, we see that
the competition between the expansion and the equilibration leads to emergent new
features for both theoretical exploration and experimental observation. We anticipate
the development of fluctuating hydrodynamics would be particularly useful for the
search of signatures of the QCD phase boundary as well as for analyzing the off-
equilibrium properties of QCD matter.
So far, most of the studies are focused on the crossover region of the phase
diagram. The exploration of the high baryon density regime surely would bring out
new ingredients which require further studies. For the search for the QCD critical
point, the extension of the current framework to include non-Gaussian fluctuations
is imperative, though important first steps have been taken [126, 134]. A dynamical
framework describing pertinent physics of the first-order transition is also crucially
needed; see Ref. [47] on related developments. For cold and dense nuclear matter,
the effects of quantum fluctuations might be significant. We anticipate that through
a combination of the present and future theoretical developments together with an
abundance of experimental data from beam energy scan and system size scan, the
community will witness substantial progress in characterizing the phase structure
and dynamic evolution of QCD matter as well as mapping out a full picture of its
evolution as a function of temperature, density, and resolution scale.
160 H. Elfner et al.
Before focusing on lower beam energies, let us review shortly the state-of-the-art
flow measurements at the highest energies at RHIC and LHC. At the LHC and top
RHIC energies, the dynamics of the heavy-ion collisions and produced QGP are
well described in terms of relativistic fluid dynamics. Due to the extremely short
crossing time, the energy deposition and entropy production happen very quickly
τ ! 0.1 fm/c, producing a hot, dense, and nearly thermalized QGP on the time scale of
τ ! 0.5 fm/c. Driven by the large pressure gradients, the QGP undergoes collective,
Hubble-like expansion, converting the spatial non-uniformities in the initial state into
the collective radial flow and azimuthally anisotropic flow in the momentum space.
They are characterized by the Fourier series in azimuthal angle:
+ ∞
-
d2 N 1 ,
= N ( pT ) 1 + 2 vn ( pT ) cos(n(φ − %n ) (3.29)
pT dpT dφ 2π i=1
where vn and %n represent the magnitude and the phase (referred to as the event
plane or EP) of the nth-order anisotropic flow, and the slope of the particle momen-
tum spectrum N ( pT ) reflects the strength of the radial flow, i.e., a flatter spectrum
or larger * pT + implies a stronger radial flow [143]. The flow develops mostly in the
early partonic phase when the pressure gradients are large, but persists all the way
through phase transition and up until freeze-out in the hadronic phase. The strength
of the radial and anisotropic flow are sensitive to not only the initial state, but also
the EOS and transport properties of the medium at various stages [144]. With the
extensive and precise measurements of vn and * pT + data, we are able to place quanti-
tative constraints on the bulk properties of the QGP such as shear viscosity η/s, bulk
viscosity ζ/s, and EOS. For example, recent state-of-the-art Bayesian analysis over
a space of hydrodynamic model parameters, obtained via fitting to experimental data
from both RHIC and the LHC, gives η/s ∼ (0.07+0.05 −0.04 ) + c(T − Tc ) for temperatures
T > Tc = 154 MeV with Tc corresponding to the crossover temperature [145–147].
The success of hydrodynamic description in high energy largely is due to the
fact that the system is nearly boost invariant and relatively long-lived, such that the
system evolution can be divided into different stages. But in the lower end of the
√
BES energies of sNN < 20 GeV, the boost-invariance assumption is no longer valid,
and the initial state and the space–time picture become much more complex [148].
Due to the increased crossing time, nuclear stopping in the longitudinal direction
and particle production in the transverse direction happens simultaneously, and there
is no clear distinction between the initial state and final state [8, 9]. The system,
the QGP phase, in particular, is more short-lived, and there is a large conceptual
uncertainty in the space–time dynamics. Furthermore, the lower energy region also
probes a medium at low T and large µ B for which one expects very different bulk
properties. Describing such a system requires full 3+1D models, either hydrodynamic
model or transport approach, which have been the focus of many theoretical efforts.
From the experimental point of view, all flow observables are also expected to show
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 161
The information on radial flow is often represented by transverse radial flow velocity
β and kinetic freeze-out temperature Tkin , extracted by a blast-wave model fit to the
pT spectra of identified particles [149]:
# R ) * ) *
dN pT sinh ρ(r ) m T cosh ρ(r )
∝ r dr m T I0 × K1 (3.30)
pT dpT 0 Tkin Tkin
where m T is the transverse mass of a hadron, ρ(r ) = tanh−1 fi, and I0 and K 1 are
the modified Bessel functions. Hadrons are assumed to reach local thermalization at
the temperature Tkin and to move with a common transverse velocity β. The blast-
wave model describes simultaneously the measured pT spectra of π ± , K ± , p, and
p̄ from RHIC and the LHC energies [3, 150, 151] in all centrality ranges. The
extracted Tkin values show anti-correlation with extracted *β+ values as shown in
Fig. 3.10: higher values of *β+ correspond to lower values of Tkin and vice versa. The
steady decrease of Tkin from peripheral to central collisions suggests a longer lived
140
Tkin (MeV)
120
100
80
Au+Au 27 GeV
Au+Au 19.6 GeV central
60 Au+Au 11.5 GeV
Au+Au 7.7 GeV
40
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
〈β〉
162 H. Elfner et al.
y=0
net-!, and net-K [152, 153]
dv1/dy|
0
10 102
sNN (GeV)
fireball in more central collisions, while the increase of *β+ from peripheral to central
collisions suggests stronger radial flow in more central collisions. As a function of
collision energy, the *β+ shows a rapid increase at low energies (<5 GeV), then a
slight increase across the RHIC BES energies (7.7–39 GeV), after which it again
increases very slowly up to LHC energy [3].
Figure 3.11 summarizes collision energy dependence of directed flow slope rel-
ative to rapidity (dv1 /dy). The directed flow is sensitive to the expansion of the
created medium in the early stage of collisions as demonstrated in nuclear trans-
port and hydrodynamic models [154–156]. The appearance of local minimum of
√
dv1 /dy( sNN ) has been predicted to be a robust signature of first-order phase tran-
sition from quark matter to hadron matter [157, 158]. A hybrid calculation has
shown that the change in the dynamics from the hot and dense hydrodynamic
stage to the hadronic rescattering stage could influence the energy dependence of
directed flow and potentially hide the effects of changes in the EOS [159]. There-
fore, the direct flows of conserved charges, such as net-charge, net-strangeness,
or net-baryon number, are more sensitive probes of the phase transition. Here,
we define net-particle as the excess yield of a particle type over its anti-particle
type [152, 153]. On this basis, the directed flow of net-particle is defined as fol-
lows: v1X = r (y)v1 X̄ + [1 − r (y)]v1net−X , where X is particle type, X̄ represents the
corresponding anti-particle, and r (y) represents the ratio of particle to anti-particle
yield. Figure 3.11 presents the collision energy dependence of directed slope at mid-
rapidity (dv1 /dy) for net-proton, net-!, and net-kaon. The non-monotonic energy
dependence is observed for the net-baryon data, proton, and ! as shown in the plot,
which is consistent with the hydrodynamical calculations with first-order phase tran-
sition [157, 158]. The values of net-proton and net-! dv1 /dy are also consistent
√
within uncertainties. Below s N N < 20 GeV, there is a large divergence between
dv1 /dy of net-kaon and net-proton (net-!), whereas all three agree well at and
above 20 GeV. It suggests that the properties of the medium would be different
above/below 20 GeV. At lower beam energies, the signature of phase transition is
modified by other dynamical effects, such as baryon stopping and transportation.
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 163
v2(X)-v (X)
π+-π-
0 0.03
2
v2
0.02
CERES ALICE
−0.05 E877 STAR 0.01
E895 PHENIX
FOPI PHOBOS 0
NICA
NICA
−0.1 FAIR −0.01 FAIR
10 10 2 103 10 10 2
sNN (GeV) sNN (GeV)
Fig. 3.12 a The pT -integrated v2 in 20−30% most central collisions (or similar centrality) as
a function of collision energy. The data points are from E895 for protons; NA49 for pions; and
FOPI, E877, CERES, STAR, ALICE PHENIX, and PHOBOS for charged hadrons [162–174]. b
The v2 difference between particles and the corresponding anti-particles as a function of collision
energy [175–177]
The detailed centrality dependence study of dv1 /dy of net-particle could offer more
information, constrain model calculations, and possibly separate the signal of phase
transition. The dv1 /dy of φ mesons has also been measured by STAR [153], and
they are found to be larger than those of pions and kaons at and above 14.5 GeV.
More interestingly, the dv1 /dy of φ meson seems to increase sharply at 11.5 GeV.
The current data have large uncertainty. Within the large uncertainty of current data,
√
the AMPT model seems to reproduce the monotonic sNN dependence φ dv1 /dy of
φ [160]. This study is expected to be significantly improved with data from RHIC
BES program phase II. The previous measurements from AGS/SPS and earlier time
are not included here. In Sect. 4.3.2, a recent data from Ca+Ca to Au+Au over the
SIS energy range from 0.09 to 1.5 GeV/u is discussed in detail [161].
Figure 3.12 shows the pT -integrated elliptic flow and elliptic flow difference
between particles and anti-particles as a function of collision energy. Several theoreti-
cal studies suggest that a non-monotonic collision energy dependence of elliptic flow
could be observed around the “softest point of EOS” [178, 179], as there is a strong
drop in the speed of sound or reduction in the pressure of the created medium during
the dynamic evolution. Panel (a) of Fig. 3.12 shows the data from E895 for protons;
NA49 for pions; and FOPI, E877, CERES, STAR, ALICE PHENIX, and PHOBOS
for charged hadrons [162–174] for 20–30% or similar centrality. The elliptic flow
√
values are negative around sNN = 2–4 GeV, which is known as the “squeeze-out”
effect [164]: the spectators hinder the particles moving along the direction of impact
parameter, thus the most particles emit in the direction perpendicular to the reac-
tion plane. A steady increasing trend of elliptic as collision energy is observed from
√
sNN = 4−2760 GeV, and the decrease of v2 is faster for 3–7.7 GeV compared to
7.7–2760 GeV.
164 H. Elfner et al.
On the other hand, the pT differential elliptic flow of charged hadrons changes
little from RHIC BES to LHC energies [173]. Therefore, the increase of integral v2
is mainly due to the increase of mean pT which is expected from a larger radial flow.
As shown in [180], there is a non-trivial interplay between the contribution from the
hot and dense hydrodynamic stage and the contribution from the hadronic transport
evolution. Within the ideal hydrodynamic+UrQMD transport hybrid approach, it has
been demonstrated that the elliptic flow in the SPS energy regime is not very sensitive
to initial-state fluctuations and changes in the EOS [181]. The currently available data
√
over 4 < sNN < 2760 GeV do not show the non-monotonic behavior predicted by
the softening of the EOS for a system close to the critical temperature [178].
The elliptic flow of identified particles reveals more information of properties of
the system. The values of v2 for particles and the corresponding anti-particles show
√
significant differences at sNN < 20 GeV as shown in panel (b) of Fig. 3.12 [175–
177]. The difference is larger between baryons, protons, !, &, and corresponding
antibaryons. The number of constituent quark (NCQ) scaling is broken between par-
ticles and anti-particles below 20 GeV, whereas the scaling still holds separately for
particles and anti-particles down to 7.7 GeV, except for multi-strange hadrons and φ
meson at 11.5 and 7.7 GeV. The mechanism for the v2 splitting between particle and
anti-particle has been investigated in models [182–186]. A model calculation based
on hydrodynamics + UrQMD hadronic transport reproduces the proton data, indi-
cating the transport effect would be important in low energies, but it fails to describe
the meson data [182]. A calculation based only on hydrodynamics quantitatively
reproduces the π, K , and proton v2 data, but fails to reproduce the apparent order-
p
ing for strange and multi-strange baryons, i.e., #v2 > #v2! > #v2& > #v2' [183].
A Nambu–Jona-Lasino (NJL) model describes the data qualitatively, suggesting the
hadronic and/or partonic potential plays an important role [184, 185]. Future detailed
centrality dependence and high precise data of multi-strange hadrons from BES-II
program could better constrain and guide the model calculation.
One of the signals of QGP formation in high-energy heavy-ion collisions is the
NCQ scaling on elliptic flow, which has been used to support that the collectivity
is generated at the parton level. RHIC experiments measured elliptic flow for many
different types of identified particles, from copious produced π ± , K ± , p, and p̄,
to strange hadrons, multi-strange hadrons, φ mesons, and D 0 mesons in Au+Au
√
collisions at sNN = 200 GeV. The NCQ scaling is universal (holds within 10%)
for all measured identified particles except for pions which are more affected by the
resonance decays [187–190]. The multi-strange hadrons (& and ') and φ mesons
show a similar magnitude of elliptic flow as light hadrons in the intermediate pT
range of 2–5 GeV/c. As multi-strange hadrons and φ mesons are less sensitive to late
hadronic interactions compared to light hadrons, the apparent NCQ scaling suggests
that the majority of v2 is built-up during the partonic phase. The LHC experiments
observe a similar scaling behavior, although showing a somewhat larger deviation
than the RHIC top energy [191]. Naturally, as the collision energy goes down, the
conditions for the formation of QGP will not be satisfied below certain energy. Such
disappearance of the partonic collectivity pattern should be reflected by the energy
dependence of NCQ scaling of v2 . In particular, multi-strange hadrons and φ mesons
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 165
0.05
0.05
are better probes of the parton level interactions. Figure 3.13 shows the NCQ scaling
√
of v2 for 0–80% most central Au+Au collisions at sNN = 7.7–62.4 GeV from RHIC
BES phase I [176]. Here, we show the results for the anti-particles as they can only
be produced, instead of being transported, in collisions. Except for & and φ mesons
from 7.7 and 11.5 GeV collisions, the NCQ scaling of v2 works well down to collision
energy 7.7 GeV, although the measured pT range is limited due to limited statistics
at 7.7 and 11.5 GeV. The φ meson data point for 11.5 GeV and 7.7 is 2.3 and 1.8
σ lower than those of the other hadrons, respectively, at the highest (m T − m 0 )/n q
values. More precise measurements are expected to become available from the RHIC
BES-II program.
The fixed-target program (FXT) of RHIC BES phase II extends the coverage of
collisions energy down to 3 GeV. The main additional energies of FXT are 7.7 GeV,
6.2 GeV, 5.2 GeV, 4.5 GeV, 3.9 GeV, 3.5 GeV, 3.2, and 3 GeV. As the lowest energy
achieved, 3 GeV is extremely important to determine the possible phase boundary.
The left panel of Fig. 3.14 shows the recent measurement of the NCQ scaling on
√
v2 for π + , K + , and p from 10 to 40% mid-central Au+Au collisions at sNN = 3
GeV [192]. Colored dashed-lines indicate the fits by a polynomial function to the
√
NCQ-scaled v2 data at sNN = 200, 54.4, 27, 14.5, and 7.7 GeV with the colliding
√
mode [175, 193]. The same fit is also applied to the v2 data at sNN = 4.5 GeV
in the 0–30% Au+Au collisions from the fixed-target mode [194]. Results of v2
from 4.5 to 200 GeV are all positive and follow the NCQ scaling, although the
166 H. Elfner et al.
y=0
7.7 3 27 54.4 (GeV)
π 10-40% K
0.04 K 0.2
dv1/dy|
φ
v2 /nq
p
0.02
Mean-field Cascade
p
10-30%
π p 0.1 UrQMD
3 GeV
π-
0 4.5 GeV 0-30% +
K
−0.02 0
strength of the collectivity becomes weaker as the colliding energy reduces. For 3
GeV collisions, it is apparent that all the values of v2 /n q are negative, which are
very different from high energies. Furthermore, the NCQ scaling seems to disappear
at 3 GeV, pointing to the creation of matter for which the partonic interactions no
longer dominate and the hadronic interactions are more important. The right panel
of Fig. 3.14 shows the collision energy dependence of dv1 /dy for π, K , p, !, and
φ mesons from Au+Au collisions for 10–40% centrality [192]. It is well known that
at top RHIC energy, all mid-rapidity dv1 /dy slopes are negative [195]; however,
√
at sNN = 3 GeV, they are all positive. This behavior suggests that the dominant
degrees of freedom at 3 GeV are nucleons. In addition, mesons are expected to flow
along with baryons in the high baryon density region since they are dominantly
produced through resonance decays. Experimental signatures for the transition from
partonic dominated to hadronic dominated and to baryonic dominated matter have
been discussed in Ref. [6] in terms of the ratios of K + /π + and net-particle dv1 /dy.
The production of light nuclei, such as d, t,3 He, and 4 He, is believed to be mainly
through the coalescence of produced or transported nucleons. Since the binding ener-
gies of light nuclei are small, they are expected to be mainly produced at a later stage
of the system evolution. The anisotropic flow of light nuclei is a unique probe of
the light-nuclei production mechanism and freeze-out properties. The STAR Col-
laboration has observed that all light nuclei v2 generally follow scaling by atomic
√
mass number in Au+Au collisions at sNN = 7.7–200 GeV [197]. This finding indi-
cates that the coalescence of nucleons is indeed the underlying mechanism of the
production of light nuclei in these collisions.
The left panel of Fig. 3.15 shows the light nucleus v1 scaled by atomic mass
as a function of pT in four different rapidity intervals from Au+Au collisions at
√
sNN = 3 GeV [196]. One can see that the v1 /A of all the light nuclei follow the
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 167
Au+Au 3 GeV
0
10-40%
3 GeV Au+Au Collisions
-0.1 < y < 0 10-40%
0
v2 / A
v1 / A
d
t 0
3
−0.6 He -0.4 < y < -0.3
(× 2.5)
4
He −0.05 (c) -0.3 < y < -0.2 (d) -0.4 < y < -0.3
Fig. 3.15 The v1 and v2 as a function of pT with the atomic mass scale for p, d, t, 3 He, and 4 He
in four rapidity intervals in 10-40% mid-central Au+Au collisions [196]
Fig. 3.16 The left two columns show the rapidity dependence of vn for proton, deuteron, and triton
for n = 1–6 from HADES experiments. Each panel shows results for one harmonics. The cartoon
to the right illustrates a three-dimensional view of the proton emission pattern d N /dφ by summing
all the harmonics together as a function of rapidity. Figure revised from Ref. [198]
There are two major contributions to the fluctuations in the observed harmonic flow:
Initial-state fluctuations and thermal (hydrodynamical) fluctuations. In high-energy
heavy-ion collisions, flow fluctuations are dominated by initial-state fluctuations, and
the influence from hydrodynamical fluctuations has not yet been fully established.
Initial-state fluctuations are quantum fluctuations associated with the process
of nucleon–nucleon collisions and the subsequent energy deposition, on an event-
by-event basis. With these initial-state fluctuations, geometrical configurations of
the generated QGP fluctuate from event to event, giving rise to fluctuating spatial
anisotropies of the density distribution, !0 , !1 , !2 , !3 , etc. As a result of the well-
3 Dynamical Evolution of Heavy-Ion Collisions 169
3.5 Summary
a solid foundation on which the model can be tuned and improved. We also look
forward to new flow observables, traditionally not explored at low energy, such as
the multiple-particle flow cumulants, symmetric cumulants, mixed-harmonics [143],
higher-order pT fluctuations [216], vn – pT correlations [217], and longitudinal flow
decorrelations [148, 218]. Another important aspect of heavy-ion collisions is defor-
mations and radial structure of the atomic nuclei, and their influences on the initial
state and subsequent system evolution [219–224]. The MPD experiment at NICA is
√
expected to start data-taking in 2023 over the energy range of sNN = 3–11 GeV.
NICA has the ability to collide different species, which will provide an additional
handle on the longitudinal dynamics. All of these are expected to greatly improve
our understanding of the space–time dynamics of the heavy-ion collisions at low
energy and ultimately improve the constraints of the medium properties and QCD
phase diagram.
Heavy-ion collisions at O(10) GeV provide us with experimental access to study
hot nuclear matter in a high baryon density environment and quantify the phase struc-
ture of QCD matter. To establish definitive links between observables and structures
in the phase diagram, we need detailed dynamical modeling of all stages of heavy-ion
collisions. Because relativistic heavy-ion collisions go through a complex multi-stage
dynamics, fully integrated theoretical frameworks play a central role to provide reli-
able estimates of the dynamical evolution of the collisions and all relevant sources
of fluctuations. Different types of initial condition models have been developed to
consider the finite overlapping of the two nuclei at low collision energies. They open
a new venue to study the longitudinal dynamics of heavy-ion collisions. (3+1)D rela-
tivistic viscous hydrodynamics with multiple conserved charges is needed to study the
charge fluctuations and detailed hadronic chemistry in the high baryon density region.
Hadronic transport models with the inclusion of mean fields are essential. Searching
for the conjectured QCD critical point has been a main driving force for the Beam
Energy Scan program at RHIC and future experimental program at FAIR and NICA.
Quantifying the non-equilibrium evolution of stochastic fluctuations near the QCD
critical point remains a challenge to be incorporated into the full three-dimensional
dynamical frameworks. Further going beyond Gaussian fluctuations and theoretical
description of first-order phase transition requires more theoretical developments.
Acknowledgements This work is partly supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Foun-
dation under Grant Nos: 11861131009 and 12075098, and in part by the National Science Founda-
tion (NSF) under grant numbers PHY-2012922 and PHY-2012947 (Z.W.L.), and by the U.S. Depart-
ment of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, under contract numbers DE-SC001346
and DE-SC0021969, and within the framework of the Beam Energy Scan Theory (BEST) Topical
Collaboration, and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from JSPS (JP21K03577). J.Y. Jia research
is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics,
under contract number DEFG0287ER40331, and by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under
grant number PHY-1913138. Y. Y. would like to acknowledge financial support from the Strate-
gic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant No. XDB34000000.
M. Stephanov is supported by D.O.E with grant No. DE-FG0201ER41195. S.S. Shi would like
to acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under
Grant Nos. 11890710(11890711) and 12175084 and the National Key Research and Development
Program of China under Grant No. 2020YFE0202002. L.Y. is supported in part by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China under grant number 11975079.
172 H. Elfner et al.
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