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Updated: Mar 28, 2026

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Colliding Shock Waves and Hydrodynamics in Small Systems
1Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Abstract:
Using numerical holography, we study the collision of a planar sheet of energy with a bounded localized distribution of energy. The collision, which mimics proton-nucleus collisions, produces a localized lump of debris with transverse size R∼1/T_{eff} with T_{eff} the effective temperature, and has large gradients and large transverse flow. Nevertheless, the postcollision evolution is well described by viscous hydrodynamics. Our results bolster the notion that debris produced in proton-nucleus collisions may be modeled using hydrodynamics.
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