Azimuthal anisotropy distributions in high-energy collisions

Abstract

Elliptic flow in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions results from the hydrodynamic response to the spatial anisotropy of the initial density profile. A long-standing problem in the interpretation of flow data is that uncertainties in the initial anisotropy are mingled with uncertainties in the response. We argue that the non-Gaussianity of flow fluctuations in small systems with large fluctuations can be used to disentangle the initial state from the response. We apply this method to recent measurements of anisotropic flow in Pb+Pb and p+Pb collisions at the LHC, assuming linear response to the initial anisotropy. The response coefficient is found to decrease as the system becomes smaller and is consistent with a low value of the ratio of viscosity over entropy of η/s≃0.19. Deviations from linear response are studied. While they significantly change the value of the response coefficient they do not change the rate of decrease with centrality. Thus, we argue that the estimate of η/s is robust against non-linear effects.