Deformed flux tubes produce azimuthal anisotropy in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We investigate the azimuthal anisotropy ${v}_{2}$ of particle production in nucleus-nucleus collisions in the maximum entropy approach. This necessitates two new phenomenological input parameters $\ensuremath{\delta}$ and ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{2}$ compared with integrated multiplicity distributions. The parameter $\ensuremath{\delta}$ describes the deformation of a flux tube and can be theoretically calculated in a bag model with a bag constant which depends on the density of surrounding flux tubes. The parameter ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{2}$ defines the anisotropy of the particle distribution in momentum space and can be connected to $\ensuremath{\delta}$ via the uncertainty relation. In this framework we compute the anisotropy ${v}_{2}$ as a function of centrality, transverse momentum, and rapidity in qualitative agreement with Large Hadron Collider data.