Rapidity profile of the initial energy density in heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

The rapidity dependence of the initial energy density in heavy-ion collisions is calculated from a three-dimensional McLerran-Venugopalan model (3dMVn) introduced by Lam and Mahlon. This model is infrared safe since global color neutrality is enforced. In this non-boost-invariant framework, the nuclei have non-zero thickness in the longitudinal direction. This results in Bjorken-x dependent unintegrated gluon distribution functions which lead to a rapidity-dependent initial energy density after the collision. The initial energy density and its rapidity dependence are important initial conditions for the quark gluon plasma and its hydrodynamic evolution.