Initial indications for the production of a strongly coupled plasma inPb+Pbcollisions atsNN=2.76TeV

Abstract

Results from first measurements of charged-particle differential elliptic flow, obtained in $\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathit{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV with the ALICE detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), are compared to those obtained for $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}$ collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathit{NN}}}=0.2$ TeV with the PHENIX detector at BNL's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The comparisons, made as a function of centrality (cent) or the number of participant pairs (${N}_{\text{part}}$) and particle transverse momentum ${p}_{T}$, indicate an excellent agreement between the magnitude and trends for the flow coefficients ${v}_{2}({p}_{T},\text{cent})$. Analysis indicates that the averaged specific viscosity of the quark gluon plasma (QGP) produced in LHC collisions is similar to that for the strongly coupled QGP produced in RHIC collisions.