Using combined data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion and Large Hadron Colliders, we constrain the shear and bulk viscosities of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at temperatures of ∼ 150 – 350 MeV . We use ...Bayesian inference to translate experimental and theoretical uncertainties into probabilistic constraints for the viscosities. With Bayesian model averaging we propagate an estimate of the model uncertainty generated by the transition from hydrodynamics to hadron transport in the plasma's final evolution stage, providing the most reliable phenomenological constraints to date on the QGP viscosities.
We investigate the implications of a nonzero bulk viscosity coefficient on the azimuthal momentum anisotropy of ultracentral relativistic heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. We find ...that, with IP-Glasma initial conditions, a finite bulk viscosity coefficient leads to a better description of the flow harmonics in ultracentral collisions. We then extract optimal values of bulk and shear viscosity coefficients that provide the best agreement with flow harmonic coefficients data in this centrality class.
We propose a redefinition of the principal component analysis (PCA) of anisotropic flow that makes it more directly connected to fluctuations of the initial geometry of the system. Then, using ...state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations, we make an explicit connection between flow fluctuations and a cumulant expansion of the initial transverse geometry. In particular, we show that the second principal component of elliptic flow is generated by higher-order cumulants, and therefore probes smaller length scales of the initial state. With this information, it will be possible to put new constraints on properties of the early-time dynamics of a heavy-ion collision, including small-scale structure, as well as properties of the quark-gluon plasma.
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