Anisotropic flow in Pb+Pb collisions at LHC from the quark gluon string model with parton rearrangement

Abstract

We present predictions for the pseudorapidity dependence of the azimuthal anisotropy parameters v_1 and v_2 of baryons and inclusive charged hadrons in Pb+Pb collisions at a LHC energy of sqrt(s) = 5.5 TeV applying a microscopic transport model, namely the quark gluon string model (QGSM) which has been recently extended for parton rearrangement and fusion processes. Pb+Pb collisions with impact parameters b = 2.3 fm and b = 8 fm have been simulated in order to investigate additionally the difference between central and semiperipheral configurations. In contrast to v_1(eta) at RHIC, the directed flow of charged hadrons shows a small normal flow alignment. The elliptic flow v_2(eta) turns out to be rather similar in shape for RHIC and LHC conditions, the magnitude however increases about 10-20 % at the LHC, leading to the conclusion that the hydrodynamical limit will be reached.

6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett. B