Azimuthal dependence of two-particle transverse momentum current correlations

Abstract

Two-particle transverse momentum correlation functions are a powerful technique for understanding the dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Among these, the transverse momentum correlator $G_{2}\left(\Delta\eta,\Delta\varphi\right)$ is of particular interest for its potential sensitivity to the shear viscosity per unit of entropy density $\eta/s$ of the quark-gluon plasma formed in heavy-ion collisions. We use the UrQMD, AMPT, and EPOS models for Au--Au at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 200~GeV and Pb--Pb at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2760~GeV to investigate the long range azimuthal dependence of $G_{2}\left(\Delta\eta,\Delta\varphi\right)$, and explore its utility to constrain $\eta/s$ based on charged particle correlations. We find that the three models yield quantitatively distinct transverse momentum Fourier harmonics coefficients $a^{p_{\rm T}}_{\rm n}$. We also observe these coefficients exhibit a significant dependence on $\eta/s$ in the context of the AMPT model. These observations suggest that exhaustive measurements of the dependence of $G_{2}\left(\Delta\varphi \right)$ with collision energy, system size, collision centrality, in particular, offer the potential to distinguish between different theoretical models and their underlying assumptions. Exhaustive analyses of $G_{2}\left(\Delta\varphi \right)$ obtained in large and small systems should also be instrumental in establishing new constraints for precise extraction of $\eta/s$.