Spin Polarization of $\Lambda$ hyperons from Dissipative Spin Hydrodynamics

Abstract

We present a framework for spin dynamics in the quark-gluon plasma created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Under the approximation of small polarization, macroscopic spin degrees of freedom decouple from the background, and their evolution equations and transport coefficients have been computed using quantum kinetic theory of massive particles with nonlocal collisions. Employing this theory, we numerically solve dissipative relativistic spin hydrodynamics. We explore three interaction scenarios between constituent particles and apply this framework to compute both global and local spin polarization of $\Lambda$ hyperons in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV. Our results show that the initially vanishing spin potential relaxes toward thermal vorticity, driving global polarization. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the sign of longitudinal polarization is sensitive to the interaction type, emphasizing the need for a consistent treatment of dissipative effects in spin hydrodynamics to describe experimental data.