Influence of Shear Viscosity of Quark-Gluon Plasma on Elliptic Flow in Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

We investigate the influence of a temperature-dependent shear viscosity over entropy density ratio eta/s on the transverse momentum spectra and elliptic flow of hadrons in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find that the elliptic flow in root s(NN) = 200 GeV Au + Au collisions at RHIC is dominated by the viscosity in the hadronic phase and in the phase transition region, but largely insensitive to the viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). At the highest LHC energy, the elliptic flow becomes sensitive to the QGP viscosity and insensitive to the hadronic viscosity.