-differential radial flow in a blast-wave model
Phys. Rev. C 112, 024902 – Published 7 August, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/83zq-kdjg
Abstract
The transverse-momentum differential radial flow observable , recently proposed and measured by the ATLAS and ALICE Collaborations, provides a novel tool to probe radial expansion dynamics in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. In this work, we conduct a detailed study of using a blast-wave model that incorporates hydrodynamic-like expansion and thermal emission. We introduce event-by-event fluctuations in the transverse expansion velocity and kinetic freeze-out temperature using Gaussian probability distributions. Our results show that increasing the mean expansion velocity leads to a clear mass ordering in , while fluctuations in both expansion velocity and freeze-out temperature significantly enhance the magnitude of , particularly at higher . We fit blast-wave model calculations for identified hadrons (, and ) to recent ALICE data from Pb-Pb collisions at TeV using a Bayesian parameter estimation framework. The extracted mean transverse expansion velocity decreases, while the kinetic freeze-out temperature increases, from central to peripheral collisions. Additionally, the freeze-out temperatures inferred from are systematically higher than those obtained from conventional -spectra fits, likely due to the reduced sensitivity of to resonance decay contributions.