The signature of charge dependent directed flow observables by electromagnetic fields in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We discuss the generation of the directed flow $v_1(p_T,y_z)$ induced by the electromagnetic field as a function of $p_T$ and $y_z$. Despite the complex dynamics of charged particles due to strong interactions generating several anisotropies in the azimuthal angle, it is possible at $p_T > m$ to directly correlate the splitting in $v_1$ of heavy quarks with different charges to some main features of the magnetic field, and in particular its values at formation and freeze-out time. We further found that the slope of the splitting $dΔv_1/dy_z|_{y_z=0}$ of positively and negatively charged particles at high $p_T$ can be formulated as $dΔv_1/dy_z|_{y_z=0}=-α\frac{\partial \ln f}{\partial p_T}+\frac{2α-β}{p_T}$, where the constants $α$ and $β$ are constrained by the $y$ component of magnetic fields and the sign of $α$ is simply determined by the difference $Δ[tB_y(t)]$ in the center of colliding systems at the formation time of particles and at the time when particles leave the effective range of electromagnetic fields or freeze out. The formula is derived from general considerations and is confirmed by several related numerical simulations; it supplies a useful guide to quantify the effect of different magnetic field configurations and provides an evidence of why the measurement of $Δv_1$ of charm, bottom and leptons from $Z^0$ decay and their correlations are a powerful probe of the initial e.m. fields in ultra-relativistic collisions.