P. S. Saumia

We study the effect of surface tension of the phase boundary in the dynamics of an expanding fluid. A fluid at local thermal equilibrium, but has a slowly varying temperature profile, like the plasma formed in heavy ion collisions, will have rapidly varying order parameter field at the edge of the plasma where the temperature falls below the transition temperature. In the case where the free energy admits a first order transition, the gradient energy of this field will act as surface tension. We couple hydrodynamics and order parameter field evolutions to study the effect of this surface in the expansion of the plasma. We see that the surface slows down the expansion which reflects in the development of radial flow and momentum anisotropy.

We study the Z 3 meta-stable states in the Polyakov loop Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. These states exist for temperatures above T m ~ 194 MeV and can decay via bubble nucleation. We numerically solve the bounce equation to compute the nucleation rate. We speculate that, in the context of heavy-ion collisions, the likely scenario for the decay of the meta-stable states is via spinodal decomposition.

Flow has emerged as a crucial probe for the properties of the thermalized medium produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The evolution of initial state fluctuations leaves imprints on the power spectrum of flow coefficients. Therefore flow coefficients are a crucial probe of initial state fluctuations arising from the parton distributions of the colliding nuclei. This has a very strong correspondence with the physics of power spectrum of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) anisotropies which directly probes initial inflationary fluctuations. Much work has been done to probe these interesting interconnections, in particular, in developing techniques for the measurements of higher flow coefficients. We present a short review of these developments. The effect of initial magnetic field on these features will also be reviewed. All this acquires special importance in view of upcoming electron-ion collider which will directly probe initial parton distribution of the colliding nucleus.

Very strong magnetic fields can arise in non-central heavy-ion collisions at ultrarelativistic energies, which may not decay quickly in a conducting plasma. We carry out relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD) simulations to study the effects of this magnetic field on the evolution of the plasma and on resulting flow fluctuations in the ideal RMHD limit. Our results show that magnetic field leads to enhancement in elliptic flow for small impact parameters while it suppresses it for large impact parameters (which may provide a signal for initial stage magnetic field). Interestingly, we find that magnetic field in localized regions can temporarily increase in time as evolving plasma energy density fluctuations lead to reorganization of magnetic flux. This can have important effects on chiral magnetic effect. Magnetic field has non-trivial effects on the power spectrum of flow fluctuations. For very strong magnetic field case one sees a pattern of even-odd difference in the power spectrum of flow coefficients arising from reflection symmetry about the magnetic field direction if initial state fluctuations are not dominant. We discuss the situation of nontrivial magnetic field configurations arising from collision of deformed nuclei and show that it can lead to anomalous elliptic flow. Special (crossed body-body) configurations of deformed nuclei collision can lead to presence of quadrupolar magnetic field which can have very important effects on the rapidity dependence of transverse expansion (similar to {\it beam focusing} from quadrupole fields in accelerators).

Very strong magnetic fields can arise in noncentral heavy-ion collisions at ultrarelativistic energies, and may not decay quickly in a conducting plasma. We carry out relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD) simulations to study the effects of this magnetic field on the evolution of the plasma and on resulting flow fluctuations in the ideal RMHD limit. Our results show that the magnetic field leads to enhancement in elliptic flow for small impact parameters while it suppresses it for large impact parameters (which may provide a signal for the initial stage magnetic field). Interestingly, we find that magnetic field in localized regions can temporarily increase in time as evolving plasma energy density fluctuations lead to reorganization of magnetic flux. This can have important effects on the chiral magnetic effect. The magnetic field has nontrivial effects on the power spectrum of flow fluctuations. For the very strong magnetic field case, one sees a pattern of even-odd difference in the power spectrum of flow coefficients arising from reflection symmetry about the magnetic field direction if initial state fluctuations are not dominant. We discuss the situation of nontrivial magnetic field configurations arising from collision of deformed nuclei and show that it can lead to anomalous elliptic flow. Special (crossed body-body) configurations of deformed nuclei collisions can lead to the presence of a quadrupolar magnetic field, which can have very important effects on the rapidity dependence of transverse expansion (similar to beam focusing from quadrupole fields in accelerators).