Hydrodynamics of transversally thermalized partons in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

The hydrodynamic description of transversally thermalized matter, possibly formed at the early stages of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, is developed. The formalism is based on the thermodynamically consistent approach with all thermodynamic variables referring to two-dimensional objects, the so-called transverse clusters, which are identified with the particles having the same rapidity. The resulting hydrodynamic equations for a single cluster have the form of the two-dimensional hydrodynamic equations of the perfect fluid. Since the clusters do not perform any work in the longitudinal direction, their energy is completely transformed and used to generate strong radial and elliptic flows that turn out to be compatible with the experimental data.