On differences between even and odd anisotropic-flow harmonics in non-equilibrated systems

Abstract

To assess how anisotropic transverse flow is created in a system out of equilibrium, we compare several kinetic-theoretical models in the few-rescatterings regime. We compare the flow harmonics v_n from three types of transport simulations, with either 2rightarrow 2 or 2rightarrow 0 collision kernels and in the former case allowing the particles to rescatter several times or not, and from analytical calculations neglecting the gain term of the Boltzmann equation. We find that the even flow harmonics are similar in all approaches, while the odd ones differ significantly. This suggests that while even v_n harmonics may to a large extent be due to the anisotropic escape probability of particles, this is not the predominant mechanism underlying the odd v_n coefficients.