How much does the hadronic phase contribute to the observed anisotropic flow at the LHC?

¹ Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
² Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands

^a e-mail: R.J.M.Snellings@uu.nl

Published online: 22 June 2015

Abstract

Elliptic flow signals the presence of multiple interactions between the constituents of the created matter in heavy-ion collisions. This includes possible contributions from the different phases, including the hadronic phase. In these proceedings I will first show that the energy dependence of elliptic flow, based on recent ALICE and STAR beam energy scan measurements, can largely be understood in terms of a boosted thermal system. In addition, a detailed comparison between the identified particle elliptic flow measured by the ALICE collaboration and viscous hydrodynamical model calculations with and without a hadronic afterburner is performed to constrain the possible effects of individual hadron-hadron re-interaction cross-sections.