Dissipative hydrodynamics coupled to chiral fields

Using second--order dissipative hydrodynamics coupled self-consistently to the linear $\sigma$ model we study the 2+1 dimensional evolution of the fireball created in Au+Au relativistic collisions. We analyze the influence of the dynamics of the chiral fields on the charged-hadron elliptic flow $v_2$ and on the ratio $v_4/(v_2)^2$ for a temperature-independent as well as for a temperature-dependent viscosity-to-entropy ratio $\eta/s$ calculated from the linearized Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation. We find that $v_2$ is not very sensitive to the coupling of chiral sources to the hydrodynamic evolution, but the temperature dependence of $\eta/s$ plays a much bigger role on this observable. On the other hand, the ratio $v_4/(v_2)^2$ turns out to be much more sensitive than $v_2$ to both the coupling of the chiral sources and the temperature dependence of $\eta/s$.