Transverse flow in relativistic viscous hydrodynamics

Abstract

Hydrodynamic model simulations of Au-Au collisions at RHIC have indicated recently, that with improved simulations in the coming years, it may be feasible to quantify the viscosity of the matter produced in heavy ion collisions. To this end, a consistent fluid dynamic description of viscous effects is clearly needed. Here, we report and extend on recent work in this direction [R. Baier, P. Romatschke and U.A. Wiedemann, arXiv:hep-ph/0602249 ]. In particular, we observe that a recently used, approximate form of the 2nd order Israel-Stewart viscous hydrodynamic equations of motion cannot account consistently for the transverse flow fields, which are expected to develop in heavy ion collisions. We identify the appropriate equations of motion.