Collective dynamics of the fireball Original Research Article

I analyse the identified single-particle pt spectra and two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations from RHIC. They indicate a massive transverse expansion and rather short lifetime of the system. The quantitative analysis in framework of the blast-wave model yields, however, unphysical results and suggests that the model may not be applicable in description of two-particle correlations. I then discuss generalisations of the blast-wave model to non-central collisions and the question how spatial asymmetry can be disentangled from flow asymmetry in measurements of v2 and azimuthally sensitive HBT radii.