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Relativistic shock waves in viscous gluon matter
1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 1, D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Abstract:
We solve the relativistic Riemann problem in viscous gluon matter employing a microscopic parton cascade. We demonstrate the transition from ideal to viscous shock waves by varying the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio eta/s from zero to infinity. We show that an eta/s ratio larger than 0.2 prevents the development of well-defined shock waves on time scales typical for ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Comparisons with viscous hydrodynamic calculations confirm our findings.
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