Eur. Phys. J. C (2023) 83: 96
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-11257-9

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Evolution of global polarization in relativistic heavy-ion collisions within a perturbative approach

¹ Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science, Shandong University, 266237, Qingdao, Shandong, China
² Department of Physics and Electronic-Information Engineering, Hubei Engineering University, 432000, Xiaogan, Hubei, China
³ Institute of Particle Physics and Key Laboratory of Quark and Lepton Physics (MOE), Central China Normal University, 430079, Wuhan, Hubei, China

^c shanshan.cao@sdu.edu.cn
^d jdeng@sdu.edu.cn

Received: 12 May 2022
Accepted: 23 January 2023
Published online: 31 January 2023

Abstract

Extremely large angular orbital momentum can be produced in non-central heavy-ion collisions, leading to a strong transverse polarization of partons that scatter through the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) due to spin-orbital coupling. We develop a perturbative approach to describe the formation and spacetime evolution of quark polarization inside the QGP. Polarization from both the initial hard scatterings and interactions with the QGP have been consistently described using the quark-potential scattering approach, which has been coupled to realistic initial condition calculation and the subsequent $(3+1)$-dimensional viscous hydrodynamic simulation of the QGP for the first time. Within this improved approach, we have found that different spacetime-rapidity-dependent initial energy density distributions generate different time evolution profiles of the longitudinal flow velocity gradient of the QGP, which further lead to an approximately 15% difference in the final polarization of quarks collected on the hadronization hypersurface of the QGP. Therefore, in addition to the collective flow coefficients, the hyperon polarization may serve as a novel tool to help constrain the initial condition of the hot nuclear matter created in high-energy nuclear collisions.