Probing the early-time dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions with electromagnetic radiation

Abstract

Using 3+1D viscous relativistic fluid dynamics, we show that electromagnetic probes are sensitive to the initial conditions and to the out-of-equilibrium features of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Within the same approach, we find that hadronic observables show a much lesser sensitivity to these aspects. We conclude that electromagnetic observables allow access to dynamical regions that are beyond the reach of soft hadronic probes.

Comments: Talk given at the 6th International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2013), Nov 4-8, 2013, Stellenbosch, South Africa