Splitting of elliptic flow in a tilted fireball

Abstract

The splitting of elliptic flow measured in different regions of the momentum space of produced hadrons has been recently studied in transport models and proposed as a sensitive probe of the angular momentum carried by the fireball produced in a relativistic heavy ion collision. The initial state angular momentum also gives rise to rapidity odd directed flow which has been measured. We consider a relativistic hydrodynamic framework with the initial matter distribution suitably calibrated to describe the observed directed flow and apply it to study the spilt in the elliptic flow. Our study suggests that the split in the elliptic flow is mostly driven by directed and triangular flows and may be used to constrain models of initial state rapidity distribution of matter in the fireball.