On predictions of the first results from RHIC

In this talk, I will discuss the predictions of the first results from RHIC: the charged particle multiplicity $dN_{\rm ch}/d\eta$, its centrality dependence and the elliptic flow $v_2$.Comment: A plenary review talk at Quark Matter 2001, Stony Brook, USA, January 2001, 10 page

Minijets in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC

Recent results on minijet production in nuclear collisions at the RHIC and LHC energies are reviewed. Initial conditions of the QGP at $\tau=0.1$ fm$/c$, especially parton chemistry, thermalization and net baryon number-to-entropy ratio are discussed. Also, contribution of minijets from a hard BFKL-pomeron ladder will be estimated

Event-by-event hydrodynamics and elliptic flow from fluctuating initial state

We develop a framework for event-by-event ideal hydrodynamics to study the differential elliptic flow which is measured at different centralities in Au+Au collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Fluctuating initial energy density profiles, which here are the event-by-event analogues of the eWN profiles, are created using a Monte Carlo Glauber model. Using the same event plane method for obtaining $v_2$ as in the data analysis, we can reproduce both the measured centrality dependence and the $p_T$ shape of charged-particle elliptic flow up to $p_T\sim2$~GeV. We also consider the relation of elliptic flow to the initial state eccentricity using different reference planes, and discuss the correlation between the physical event plane and the initial participant plane. Our results demonstrate that event-by-event hydrodynamics with initial state fluctuations must be accounted for before a meaningful lower limit for viscosity can be obtained from elliptic flow data.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures; v2: figures updated and v2{PP} results adde

Hard dihadron correlations in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC

High transverse momentum (P_T) processes are considered to be an important tool to probe and understand the medium produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions via the interaction of hard, perturbatively produced partons with the medium. In this context, triggered hard dihadron correlations constitute a class of observables set between hard single inclusive hadrons (dominated by the leading jet fragments) and fully reconstructed jets - while they probe some features of the perturbative QCD evolution of a parton shower in the medium, they do not suffer from the problem of finding a suitable separation between soft perturbative (jet-like) and soft non-perturbative (medium-like) physics as the identification of full jets does. On the other hand, the trigger requirement introduces non-trivial complications to the process, which makes the medium-modification of the correlation pattern difficult and non-intuitive to understand. In this work, we review the basic physics underlying triggered dihadron correlations and make a systematic comparison of several combinations of medium evolution and parton-medium interaction models with the available data from 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions at RHIC. We also discuss the expected results for 2.76 ATeV Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PR