Bulk viscosity of a gas of neutrinos and coupled scalar particles, in the era of recombination

Bulk viscosity may serve to damp sound waves in a system of neutrinos coupled to very light scalar particles, in the era after normal neutrino decoupling but before recombination. We calculate the bulk viscosity parameter in a minimal scheme involving the coupling of the two systems. We add some remarks on the bulk viscosity of a system of fully ionized hydrogen plus photons.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Scaling of v2v_2 in heavy ion collisions

We interpret the scaling of the corrected elliptic flow parameter w.r.t. the corrected multiplicity, observed to hold in heavy ion collisions for a wide variety of energies and system sizes. We use dimensional analysis and power-counting arguments to place constraints on the changes of initial conditions in systems with different center of mass energy $\sqrt{s}$. Specifically, we show that a large class of changes in the (initial) equation of state, mean free path, and longitudinal geometry over the observed $\sqrt{s}$ are likely to spoil the scaling in $v_2$ observed experimentally. We therefore argue that the system produced at most Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energies is fundamentally the same as far as the soft and approximately thermalized degrees of freedom are considered. The ``sQGP'' (Strongly interacting Quark-Gluon Plasma) phase, if it is there, is therefore not exclusive to RHIC. We suggest, as a goal for further low-energy heavy ion experiments, to search for a ``transition'' $\sqrt{s}$ where the observed scaling breaks.Comment: Accepted for publication by Phys. Rev. C Based on presentation in mini-symposium on QGP collective properties, Frankfurt. Discussion expanded, results adde

Dangerous Angular KK/Glueball Relics in String Theory Cosmology

The presence of Kaluza-Klein particles in the universe is a potential manifestation of string theory cosmology. In general, they can be present in the high temperature bath of the early universe. In particular examples, string theory inflation often ends with brane-antibrane annihilation followed by the energy cascading through massive closed string loops to KK modes which then decay into lighter standard model particles. However, massive KK modes in the early universe may become dangerous cosmological relics if the inner manifold contains warped throat(s) with approximate isometries. In the complimentary picture, in the AdS/CFT dual gauge theory with extra symmetries, massive glueballs of various spins become the dangerous cosmological relics. The decay of these angular KK modes/glueballs, located around the tip of the throat, is caused by isometry breaking which results from gluing the throat to the compact CY manifold. We address the problem of these angular KK particles/glueballs, studying their interactions and decay channels, from the theory side, and the resulting cosmological constraints on the warped compactification parameters, from the phenomenology side. The abundance and decay time of the long-lived non-relativistic angular KK modes depend strongly on the parameters of the warped geometry, so that observational constraints rule out a significant fraction of the parameter space. In particular, the coupling of the angular KK particles can be weaker than gravitational.Comment: 58 pages, 11 figures, published versio

3+1D hydrodynamic simulation of relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We present MUSIC, an implementation of the Kurganov-Tadmor algorithm for relativistic 3+1 dimensional fluid dynamics in heavy-ion collision scenarios. This Riemann-solver-free, second-order, high-resolution scheme is characterized by a very small numerical viscosity and its ability to treat shocks and discontinuities very well. We also incorporate a sophisticated algorithm for the determination of the freeze-out surface using a three dimensional triangulation of the hyper-surface. Implementing a recent lattice based equation of state, we compute p_T-spectra and pseudorapidity distributions for Au+Au collisions at root s = 200 GeV and present results for the anisotropic flow coefficients v_2 and v_4 as a function of both p_T and pseudorapidity. We were able to determine v_4 with high numerical precision, finding that it does not strongly depend on the choice of initial condition or equation of state.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, version accepted for publication in PRC, references added, minor typos corrected, more detailed discussion of freeze-out routine adde

Dissipative hydrodynamics in 2+1 dimension

In 2+1 dimension, we have simulated the hydrodynamic evolution of QGP fluid with dissipation due to shear viscosity. Comparison of evolution of ideal and viscous fluid, both initialised under the same conditions e.g. same equilibration time, energy density and velocity profile, reveal that the dissipative fluid evolves slowly, cooling at a slower rate. Cooling get still slower for higher viscosity. The fluid velocities on the otherhand evolve faster in a dissipative fluid than in an ideal fluid. The transverse expansion is also enhanced in dissipative evolution. For the same decoupling temperature, freeze-out surface for a dissipative fluid is more extended than an ideal fluid. Dissipation produces entropy as a result of which particle production is increased. Particle production is increased due to (i) extension of the freeze-out surface and (ii) change of the equilibrium distribution function to a non-equilibrium one, the last effect being prominent at large transverse momentum. Compared to ideal fluid, transverse momentum distribution of pion production is considerably enhanced. Enhancement is more at high $p_T$ than at low $p_T$. Pion production also increases with viscosity, larger the viscosity, more is the pion production. Dissipation also modifies the elliptic flow. Elliptic flow is reduced in viscous dynamics. Also, contrary to ideal dynamics where elliptic flow continues to increase with transverse momentum, in viscous dynamics, elliptic flow tends to saturate at large transverse momentum. The analysis suggest that initial conditions of the hot, dense matter produced in Au+Au collisions at RHIC, as extracted from ideal fluid analysis can be changed significantly if the QGP fluid is viscous.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures (revised). In the revised version, calculations are redone with ADS/CFT and perurbative estimate of viscosity. Comments on the unphysical effects like early reheating of the fluid, in 1st order dissipative theories are added. The particle spectra calculations are redone with modified programm

How much entropy is produced in strongly coupled Quark-Gluon Plasma (sQGP) by dissipative effects?

We argue that estimates of dissipative effects based on the first-order hydrodynamics with shear viscosity are potentially misleading because higher order terms in the gradient expansion of the dissipative part of the stress tensor tend to reduce them. Using recently obtained sound dispersion relation in thermal $\cal N$=4 supersymmetric plasma, we calculate the $resummed$ effect of these high order terms for Bjorken expansion appropriate to RHIC/LHC collisions. A reduction of entropy production is found to be substantial, up to an order of magnitude.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figur

Dissipative hydrodynamics for viscous relativistic fluids

Explicit equations are given for describing the space-time evolution of non-ideal (viscous) relativistic fluids undergoing boost-invariant longitudinal and arbitrary transverse expansion. The equations are derived from the second-order Israel-Stewart approach which ensures causal evolution. Both azimuthally symmetric (1+1)-dimensional and non-symmetric (2+1)-dimensional transverse expansion are discussed. The latter provides the formal basis for the hydrodynamic computation of elliptic flow in relativistic heavy-ion collisions including dissipative effects.Comment: 12 pages, no figures. Submitted to Physical Review

Some Remarks on Oscillating Inflation

In a recent paper Damour and Mukhanov describe a scenario where inflation may continue during the oscillatory phase. This effect is possible because the scalar field spends a significant fraction of each period of oscillation on the upper part of the potential. Such additional period of inflation could push perturbations after the slow roll regime to observable scales. Although in this work we show that the small region of the Damour-Mukhanov parameter q gives the main contribution to oscillating inflation, it was not satisfactory understood until now. Furthermore, it gives an expression for the energy density spectrum of perturbations, which is well behaved in the whole physical range of q .Comment: 4 pages including figures caption, 3 ps-figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Relativistic hydrodynamics for heavy-ion collisions

Relativistic hydrodynamics is essential to our current understanding of nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultrarelativistic energies (current experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, forthcoming experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider). This is an introduction to relativistic hydrodynamics for graduate students. It includes a detailed derivation of the equations, and a description of the hydrodynamical evolution of a heavy-ion collisions. Some knowledge of thermodynamics and special relativity is assumed.Comment: Lectures given at the Advanced School on Quark-Gluon Plasma, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, 3-13 July, 200

Dual Interpretations of Pion Clouds at RHIC

A gauge theory of pions interacting with rho-mesons at elevated temperatures is used to calculate the pressure in a hot pion gas. No reference is made to the pion's status as a QCD Goldstone boson. The role of the pion is merely that of a carrier of an SU(2) symmetry, gauged to create a vector-meson interaction, the rho playing the role of the interacting vector particle. The results are in rough agreement with much more elaborate calculations, both of the purely hadronic variety, and those that invoke quark-gluon degrees of freedom. The quark-gluon and purely hadronic calculations seemingly lead to very similar predictions which are in accord with receent data from RHIC. The results motivate the question as to whether the two descriptions are dual to each other in the sense of being alternate models, each sufficient to explain the observed data.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures (2 eps files, 1 ps file) + a figure that uses metafont package feynmf, also forwarded. Open with "latex feynmf.ins". See http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/entries/feynmf.html 9/6/06 replaced figure 2 with scaled version of sam