Measuring shear viscosity using transverse momentum correlations in relativistic nuclear collisions

Elliptic flow measurements at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider suggest that quark-gluon fluid flows with very little viscosity compared to weak-coupling expectations, challenging theorists to explain why this fluid is so nearly perfect. It is therefore vital to find quantitative experimental information on the viscosity of the fluid. We propose that measurements of transverse momentum fluctuations can be used to determine the shear viscosity. We use current data to estimate the viscosity-to-entropy ratio in the range from 0.08 to 0.3 and discuss how future measurements can reduce this uncertainty.