Early time behavior of spatial and momentum anisotropies in a kinetic approach to nuclear collisions

Abstract

We derive a general formula for the early time dependence of a phase space distribution evolving according to the kinetic Boltzmann equation. Assuming that the early evolution of the system created in high-energy nuclear collisions can be described by kinetic theory, we calculate the scaling behaviors for the onset of various characteristics of the transverse dynamics. In particular, we show that the scaling behavior of the anisotropic flow coefficients $v_n$ at early times does not depend on the details of the collision kernel or the system composition, while at the same time it differs from the prediction of fluid dynamics.