Elliptic Flow at Large Viscosity

Abstract

In this contribution we present an alternative scenario for the large elliptic flow observed in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Motivated by recent results from Lattice QCD on flavor off-diagonal susceptibilities we argue that the matter right above $T_c$ can be described by single-particle dynamics in a repulsive single-particle potential, which in turn gives rise to elliptic flow. These ideas can be tested experimentally by measuring elliptic flow of heavy quarks, preferably via the measurement of $J/\Psi$ elliptic flow.

Comments: 4 pages, 2 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennessee