Torino, 8-14 December 2008
Lectures:
New developments in relativistic viscous hydrodynamics for RHIC
Paul Romatschke (INT, Univ. Washington)
These lectures will give a detailed introduction to relativistic hydrodynamics in the presence of shear viscosity and its application to bulk physics of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
The fundamental equations will be derived from first principles which allow matching to both weakly coupled systems (which are well described by the Boltzmann equation) and strongly coupled systems (accessible through the gauge/gravity duality for e.g N=4 SYM). The relation to both relativistic Navier-Stokes equations and Mueller-Israel-Stewart theory will be discussed.
In the second part of the course the ingredients to a hydrodynamic description of RHIC physics will be reviewed, which include initial conditions (Glauber/Color Glass Condensate model), an algorithm to solve the hydrodynamic equations as well as the decoupling stage (Cooper-Frye prescription). If time allows, the lectures conclude with comparisons of viscous hydrodynamics simulations to experimental data from RHIC and the corresponding information on shear viscosity for QCD.
Thermal & statistical models (Exp)
Reinhard Stock (Frankfurt Univ)
Lecture notes: arXiv:0807.1610 [nucl-ex] ; arXiv:0809.2482 [nucl-ex]