2011/06/26 by Stefan Floerchinger, Urs Achim Wiedemann
Physics and Astronomy · #Coordinate system #Dust and Plasma Wave Phenomena #Flow (mathematics) #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Magnetic confinement fusion research #Reynolds number #Reynolds stress #Set (abstract data type) #Turbulence #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0954-3899/38/12/124171
published as J. Phys. G. 38, 124171 (2011) · 4 pages, 2 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2011, May 23 - May 28, Annecy, France
arxiv created 2011/06/26 · openalex publication_date 2011/11/10 · arxiv updated 2012/08/20 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study the evolution of local event-by-event deviations from smooth average fluid dynamic fields, as they can arise in heavy ion collisions from the propagation of fluctuating initial conditions. Local fluctuations around Bjorken flow are found to be governed by nonlinear equations whose solutions can be characterized qualitatively in terms of Reynolds numbers. Perturbations at different rapidities decouple quickly and satisfy (after suitable coordinate transformations) an effectively two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equation of non-relativistic form. We discuss the conditions under which nonlinearities in these equations cannot be neglected and turbulent behavior is expected to set in.