Elliptic flow measurements with the PHENIX detector

Abstract

Two particle azimuthal correlation functions are presented for charged hadrons produced in Au+Au collisions at RHIC ($\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130$ GeV). The measurements allow for the determination of elliptic flow without event-by-event estimation of the reaction plane. The measured correlation functions indicate elliptic flow values ($v_2$) which show significant sensitivity to both the collision centrality and the transverse momenta of emitted hadrons.