η / s of a Relativistic Hadron Gas at RHIC: Approaching the AdS/CFT bound?
Ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are thought to have produced a state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma, characterized by a very small shear-viscosity to entropy-density ratio η / s, near the lower bound predicted for that quantity by AdS/CFT methods. As the produced matter expands and cools, it evolves through a phase described by a hadron gas with rapidly increasing η / s. We calculate η / s as a function of temperature in this phase both in and out of chemical equilibrium and find that its value poses a challenge for viscous relativistic hydrodynamics, which requires small values of η / s in order to successfully describe the collective flow observables at RHIC. We therefore conclude that the origin of the low viscosity matter at the RHIC must be in the partonic phase of the reaction. © 2009 Elsevier B.V.
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Related Subject Headings
- Nuclear & Particles Physics
- 5107 Particle and high energy physics
- 5106 Nuclear and plasma physics
- 5101 Astronomical sciences
- 0206 Quantum Physics
- 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics
- 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences
Citation
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Nuclear & Particles Physics
- 5107 Particle and high energy physics
- 5106 Nuclear and plasma physics
- 5101 Astronomical sciences
- 0206 Quantum Physics
- 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics
- 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences