Magnetic field-induced squeezing effect at RHIC and at the LHC

Abstract

In off-central heavy-ion collisions, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is exposed to the strongest magnetic fields ever created in the universe. Due to the paramagnetic nature of the QGP at high temperatures, the spatially inhomogeneous magnetic field configuration exerts an anisotropic force density that competes with the pressure gradients resulting from purely geometric effects. In this paper, we simulate (3+1)-dimensional ideal hydrodynamics with external magnetic fields to estimate the effect of this force density on the anisotropic expansion of the QGP in collisions at RHIC and at the LHC. While negligible for quickly decaying magnetic fields, we find that long-lived fields generate a substantial force density that suppresses the momentum anisotropy of the plasma by up to $20\%$ at the LHC energy, and also leaves its imprint on the elliptic flow $v_2$ of charged pions.