Direct photon elliptic flow in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV

Abstract

The elliptic flow of inclusive and direct photons was measured at mid-rapidity in two centrality classes 0-20% and 20-40% in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV by ALICE. Photons were detected with the highly segmented electromagnetic calorimeter PHOS and via conversions in the detector material with the $e^{+}e^{-}$ pairs reconstructed in the central tracking system. The results of the two methods were combined and the direct photon elliptic flow was extracted in the transverse momentum range $0.9 < p_{\rm T} < 6.2$ GeV/$c$. A comparison to RHIC data shows a similar magnitude of the measured direct-photon elliptic flow. Hydrodynamic and transport model calculations are systematically lower than the data, but are found to be compatible.