Anisotropic flow from RHIC to the LHC

Abstract

Anisotropic flow is recognized as one of the main observables providing information on the early stage of a heavy-ion collision. At RHIC the large observed anisotropic flow and its successful description by ideal hydrodynamics is considered evidence for an early onset of thermalization and almost ideal fluid properties of the produced strongly coupled quark gluon plasma. This write-up discusses some key RHIC anisotropic flow measurements and for anisotropic flow at the LHC some predictions.