th / 0 40 71 14 v 1 3 0 Ju l 2 00 4 Evolution of Hot , Dissipative Quark Matter in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions

Non-ideal fluid dynamics with cylindrical symmetry in transverse direction and longitudinal scaling flow is employed to simulate the space-time evolution of the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC energies. The dynamical expansion is studied as a function of initial energy density and initial time. A causal theory of dissipative fluid dynamics is used instead of the standard theories which are acausal. We compute the parton momentum spectra and HBT radii from two-particle correlation functions. We find that, in non-ideal fluid dynamics, the reduction of the longitudinal pressure due to viscous effects leads to an increase of transverse flow and a decrease of the ratio Rout/Rside as compared to the ideal fluid approximation.