Pseudorapidity profile of transverse momentum fluctuations in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We investigate pseudorapidity correlations of the average transverse flow of particles emitted in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We employ 3+1 dimensional viscous relativistic hydrodynamics with initial conditions from the quark Glauber Monte Carlo model to confront the recent measurements on the pseudorapidity correlations of the transverse momentum fluctuations in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2760$GeV. We find good agreement between the model predictions and data. Further, we study two other observables build with the covariance of the average transverse momentum in different rapidity bins. These observables have better stability under various systematics, thus allowing for a robust comparison between data and model. The transverse flow-transverse flow correlation coefficient is directly related to correlations of the underlying collective flow at different pseudorapidities. The 3-bin measure of $p_T$ factorization breaking in pseudorapidity gives an estimate of possible decorrelation of the average transverse flow in the longitudinal direction.