Elliptic flow of thermal photons at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at image Original Research Article

The elliptic flow v2 of thermal photons at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at View the MathML source is predicted, based on three-dimensional ideal hydrodynamics. Because of the interplay between the asymmetry and the strength of the transverse flow, the thermal photon v2 reaches a maximum at pT∼2GeV/c and the pT-integrated v2 reaches a maximum at about 50% centrality. The pT-integrated v2 is very sensitive to the lower limit of the integral but not sensitive to the upper limit due to the rapid decrease in the spectrum of the transverse momentum.