Studying the thermoelectric properties of an anisotropic QGP medium

Abstract

We have studied how the thermoelectric properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) are affected by a weak-momentum anisotropy arising from the asymptotic expansion of matter in the initial stages of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. The highly energetic medium produced in such collisions exhibits a notable temperature difference between its central and peripheral regions. This temperature gradient induces an electric field whose magnitude per unit temperature gradient, in the limit of vanishing electric current, defines the Seebeck coefficient of the medium. We have calculated the Seebeck coefficient for both individual quark flavors and the entire QGP medium in the presence of expansion-induced anisotropy by solving the relativistic Boltzmann transport equation in the relaxation time approximation within the kinetic theory framework. The partonic interactions are incorporated through their effective thermal masses within the quasiparticle model for an anisotropic QGP medium. We have observed that the magnitude of the Seebeck coefficient for each quark flavor as well as for the entire QGP medium increases in the presence of expansion-induced anisotropy, indicating a stronger induced electric field in the anisotropic medium compared to the isotropic case. Given that an increase in the Seebeck coefficient may lead to observable signatures such as charge asymmetries in particle distributions and to modifications in the transport behavior of the QGP, these results may provide useful input for future phenomenological studies investigating the internal structure and phase properties of the QGP in heavy-ion collisions.