Effects of the QCD critical point on the spectra and flow coefficients of hadrons

The space-time evolution of the hot and dense fireball of quarks and gluons produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at nonzero baryonic chemical potential and temperature has been studied by using relativistic dissipative hydrodynamics. For this purpose, a numerical code has been developed to solve the relativistic viscous causal hydrodynamics in (3 + 1) dimensions with the inclusion of QCD critical point (CP) through the equation of state and scaling behavior of transport coefficients. We compute the transverse momentum spectra, directed and elliptic flow coefficients of pions and protons to comprehend the effect of CP on these observables. It is found that the integration over the entire space-time history of the fireball largely obliterates the effects of CP on the spectra and flow coefficients for the event averaged initial conditions considered here.

Automated summary

The space-time evolution of the hot and dense fireball of quarks and gluons produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at nonzero baryonic chemical potential and temperature has been studied. A numerical code has been developed to solve the relativistic viscous causal hydrodynamics in (3 + 1) dimensions with the inclusion of QCD critical point through the equation of state and scaling behavior of transport coefficients. The effects of the QCD critical point on the observables, such as the transverse momentum spectra, directed and elliptic flow coefficients of pions and protons, are largely obliterated by the integration over the entire space-time history of the fireball for the event averaged initial conditions considered here.