Probing the early-time dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions with electromagnetic radiation

Abstract

Using 3+1D viscous relativistic fluid dynamics, we show that electromagnetic probes are sensitive to the initial conditions and to the out-of-equilibrium features of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Within the same approach, we find that hadronic observables show a much lesser sensitivity to these aspects. We conclude that electromagnetic observables allow access to dynamical regions that are beyond the reach of soft hadronic probes.

Talk given at the 6th International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2013), Nov 4-8, 2013, Stellenbosch, South Africa