MC-EKRT: Monte Carlo event generator with saturated minijet production for initializing 3+1 D fluid dynamics in high energy nuclear collisions

Abstract

We present a novel Monte-Carlo implementation of the EKRT model, MC-EKRT, for computing partonic initial states in high-energy nuclear collisions. Our new MC-EKRT event generator is based on collinearly factorized, dynamically fluctuating pQCD minijet production, supplemented with a saturation conjecture that controls the low-$p_T$ particle production. Previously, the EKRT model has been very successful in describing low-$p_T$ observables at mid-rapidity in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and RHIC energies. As novel features, our new MC implementation gives a full 3-dimensional initial state event-by-event, includes dynamical minijet-multiplicity fluctuations in the saturation and particle production, introduces a new type of spatially dependent nuclear parton distribution functions, and accounts for the conservation of energy/momentum and valence-quark number. In this proof-of-principle study, we average a large set of event-by-event MC-EKRT initial conditions and compute the rapidity and centrality dependence of the charged hadron multiplicities and elliptic flow for the LHC Pb+Pb and RHIC Au+Au collisions using 3+1 D viscous fluid-dynamical evolution. Also event-by-event fluctuations and decorrelations of initial eccentricities are studied. The good agreement with the rapidity-dependent data suggests that the same saturation mechanism that has been very successful in explaining the mid-rapidity observables, works well also at larger rapidities.