Insight from the elliptic flow of identified hadrons measured in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

In this paper, we have discussed the transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow measured in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The transverse momentum dependence of the number of constituent quarks ($n_q$) scaled $v_2$ is obtained for all the measured identified hadrons. The $n_q$ scaled $\varphi$ $v_2$ is found to be similar to $n_q$ scaled $\Omega$ $v_2$. This indicates that both $\varphi$ and $\Omega$ are produced through quark recombination at RHIC energies. We also find $n_q$ scaled proton $v_2$ ($v_2$ of light quarks) is higher than $n_q$ scaled $\varphi$ and $\Omega$ $v_2$ ($v_2$ of strange quarks) at $p_T/n_q$ $<$ 1.0 GeV/c. This can be explained by considering quark $v_2$ is proportional to its transverse kinetic energy considering mass of deconfined light and strange quarks equal to $\sim$4 MeV and $\sim$ 140 MeV, respectively.

Comments: 8 pages, 6 figures