Elliptic flow from minijet production in heavy ion collisions

We calculate the contribution to the elliptic flow observable upsilon(2) from two-particle correlations in minijet production in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. We use a minijet production cross section derived in a model inspired by saturation approach to high energy scattering. Resulting differential elliptic flow upsilon(2)(p(T)) is an increasing function of p(T) for transverse momenta below the saturation scale Q(s). At higher transverse momenta (p(T) > Q(s)) differential flow stops growing and becomes approximately constant, reproducing the elliptic flow saturation data reported by STAR. The centrality dependence of the minijet contribution to upsilon(2) is also in good agreement with the data. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.