Elliptic flows of light nuclei

Abstract

Using the coalescence model based on nucleons from a blast-wave model with its parameters fitted to the measured proton transverse momentum spectrum and elliptic flow in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, we study the elliptic flows of light nuclei in these collisions. We find that to describe the measured elliptic flows of deuterons (anti-deuterons) and tritons (helium-3) requires that the emission source for nucleons of high transverse momentum is more elongated along the reaction plane than in the perpendicular direction. Our results thus suggest that the elliptic flows of light nuclei can be used to study the nucleon emission source in relativistic heavy ion collisions.