Pre-Equilibrium Radial Flow from Central Shock-Wave Collisions in AdS5

Abstract

Using gauge/gravity duality, central ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions are modelled as collisions of shock waves in five-dimensional asymptotic AdS space. For early times after the collision, it is possible to analytically match the metric from the past to the future light-cone. This allows extraction of the pre-equilibrium energy-momentum tensor of the strongly coupled, large N gauge theory. For central collisions, this allows qualitative statements concerning the build-up of radial flow at mid-rapidity in AA and pA collisions. We find that the early-time radial flow buildup is identical to that expected from ideal hydrodynamics with an entropy density proportional to the square root of the product of the matter densities in the individual "nuclei".