Quarks produced in the early stage of noncentral heavy-ion collisions could develop a global spin polarization along the opposite direction of the reaction plane due to the spin-orbital coupling via parton interaction in a medium that has finite longitudinal flow shear along the direction of the impact parameter. We study how such polarization evolves via multiple scattering in a viscous quark-gluon plasma with an initial laminar flow. The final polarization is found to be sensitive to the viscosity and the initial shear of local longitudinal flow.

• Received 21 September 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.84.054910