System size, energy and pseudorapidity dependence of directed and elliptic flow at RHIC

We study the elliptic flow systematically from SIS to RHIC energies in a realistic dynamical cascade model. We compile our results with the recent data from STAR and PHOBOS experiments on elliptic flow of charged particles in Au + Au collisions at RHIC energy. From the analysis of elliptic flow as a function of different dynamical variables such as transverse momenta, pseudorapidity and centrality at RHIC energy, we found a good fitting with data at 1.5 times a scaling factor...

Charged particles produced in Cu+Cu collisions at \sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200 and 62.4 GeV have been measured in the PHOBOS experiment at RHIC. The comparison of the results for Cu+Cu and Au+Au for the most central collisions at the same energy reveals that the particle density per nucleon participant pair and the extended longitudinal scaling behavior are similar in both systems. This implies that for the most central events in symmetric nucleus-nucleus collisions the particle densi...

Recent measurements of event-by-event elliptic flow in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 200 GeV exhibit large relative fluctuations of about 40~50%. The data are well described by fluctuations in the shape of the initial collision region, as estimated event-by-event with the participant eccentricity using Glauber Monte Carlo. These results, combined with the demonstrated participant eccentricity scaling of the elliptic flow across nuclear species, constitute evidence of transv...

We argue that RHIC data, in particular those on the anisotropic flow coefficients v_2 and v_4, suggest that the matter produced in the early stages of nucleus-nucleus collisions is incompletely thermalized. We interpret the parameter (1/S)(dN/dy), where S is the transverse area of the collision zone and dN/dy the multiplicity density, as an indicator of the number of collisions per particle at the time when elliptic flow is established, and hence as a measure of the degree of...

Recent PHENIX elliptic flow ($v_2$) measurements for identified particles produced in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV are presented and compared to other RHIC measurements. They indicate universal scaling of $v_2$ compatible with partonic collectivity leading to the flow of light, strange and heavy quarks with a common expansion velocity field.

This paper describes the conclusions that can be drawn from the data taken thus far with the PHOBOS detector at RHIC. In the most central Au+Au collisions at the highest beam energy, evidence is found for the formation of a very high energy density system whose description in terms of simple hadronic degrees of freedom is inappropriate. Furthermore, the constituents of this novel system are found to undergo a significant level of interaction. The properties of particle produc...

We report measurements of charged particle elliptic flow %($v_2$) at mid-rapidity in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=62$ and 200 GeV. Using correlations between main STAR TPC and Forward TPCs ensures minimal bias due to non-flow effects. We further investigate the effect of flow fluctuations on $v_2/\eps$ scaling studying initial geometry eccentricity fluctuations in Monte-Carlo Glauber model, consistent with STAR direct measurements of elliptic flow fluctuati...

Elliptic flow from nuclear collisions is a hadronic observable sensitive to the early stages of system evolution. We report first results on elliptic flow of charged particles at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV using the STAR TPC at RHIC. The elliptic flow signal, v_2, averaged over transverse momentum, reaches values of about 6% for relatively peripheral collisions and decreases for the more central collisions. This can be interpreted as the observation...

The centrality dependence of elliptic flow and how it is related to the physics of expansion of the system created in high energy nuclear collisions is discussed. Since in the hydro limit the centrality dependence of elliptic flow is mostly defined by the elliptic anisotropy of the overlapping region of the colliding nuclei, and in the low density limit by the product of the elliptic anisotropy and the multiplicity, we argue that the centrality dependence of elliptic flow sho...

Fluctuations in nucleon positions can affect the spatial eccentricity of the overlap zone in nucleus-nucleus collisions. We show that elliptic flow should be scaled by different eccentricities depending on which method is used for the flow analysis. These eccentricities are estimated semi-analytically. When $v_2$ is analyzed from 4-particle cumulants, or using the event plane from directed flow in a zero-degree calorimeter, the result is shown to be insensitive to eccentricit...