Colliding shock waves and hydrodynamics in small systems

Abstract

Using numerical holography, we study the collision of a planar sheet of energy with a bounded localized distribution of energy. The collision, which mimics proton-nucleus collisions, produces a localized lump of debris with transverse size $R \sim 1/T_{\rm eff}$ with $T_{\rm eff}$ the effective temperature, and has large gradients and large transverse flow. Nevertheless, the postcollision evolution is well described by viscous hydrodynamics. Our results bolster the notion that debris produced in proton-nucleus collisions may be modeled using hydrodynamics.