International Journal of Physics | Vol. 8, No. 4, April 2017 | pp. 25–32
DOI: 10.46882/2017/IJP/000084
Research Article
Title: Relativistic Hydrodynamic Evolution and Elliptic Flow Anomalies in Asymmetric Oxygen-Gold Collisions
Names of Authors: S. C. O’Brien¹, L. M. Dupont²
Authors’ Affiliations: ¹School of Physics, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; ²Laboratoire de Geologie de Lyon, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, Lyon, France
Abstract: High-energy asymmetric collisions provide a unique experimental testing ground to study the spatial geometry limits required to form a droplet of quark-gluon plasma. This study presents a relativistic hydrodynamic modeling framework to simulate particle production cascades and evaluate elliptic flow anomalies in oxygen-gold (O-Au) collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 200.0 GeV per nucleon pair. We utilized a 3+1 dimensional viscous hydrodynamic code coupled with a statistical hadronization module to compute transverse momentum spectra. The initial energy density profiles were generated using a Monte Carlo Glauber model to capture sub-nucleon scale configurations. The numerical simulations show that expanding systems build a substantial radial flow profile, shifting the mean transverse momentum of pions up to 0.78 GeV/c in high-multiplicity events. The calculated elliptic flow coefficient (v²) displays a strong mass-ordering effect, which matches experimental measurements gathered by specialized nuclear physics detectors within a ±5.5% margin. This close agreement suggests that small-scale systems generated in O-Au collisions can achieve brief hydrodynamic collective expansion. These findings help clarify the boundaries of fluid-like behavior in high-energy subatomic particle interactions.
Keywords: Relativistic hydrodynamics; particle production; oxygen-gold collisions; elliptic flow; Glauber model; statistical hadronization
Manuscript Timeline: Received: January 08, 2017; Revised: February 17, 2017; Accepted: March 05, 2017; Published: April 12, 2017
Citation: O’Brien, S. C., & Dupont, L. M. (2017). Relativistic Hydrodynamic Evolution and Elliptic Flow Anomalies in Asymmetric Oxygen-Gold Collisions. International Journal of Physics, 8(4), 25–32.
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