Initial indications for the production of a strongly coupled plasma in Pb plus Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV

Results from first measurements of charged-particle differential elliptic flow, obtained in Pb + Pb collisions at root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), are compared to those obtained for Au + Au collisions at root s(NN) = 0.2 TeV with the PHENIX detector at BNL's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The comparisons, made as a function of centrality (cent) or the number of participant pairs (N-part) and particle transverse momentum p(T), indicate an excellent agreement between the magnitude and trends for the flow coefficients v(2)(p(T), cent). Analysis indicates that the averaged specific viscosity of the quark gluon plasma (QGP) produced in LHC collisions is similar to that for the strongly coupled QGP produced in RHIC collisions.