Energy dependence of directed flow over a wide range of pseudorapidity in Au+Au collisions at RHIC

Abstract

We report on measurements of directed flow as a function of pseudorapidity in Au+Au collisions at energies of $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}} =$ 19.6, 62.4, 130 and 200 GeV as measured by the PHOBOS detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). These results are particularly valuable because of the extensive, continuous pseudorapidity coverage of the PHOBOS detector. There is no significant indication of structure near midrapidity and the data surprisingly exhibit extended longitudinal scaling similar to that seen for elliptic flow and charged particle pseudorapidity density.