Elliptic flow of ϕ mesons and strange quark collectivity

Based on a multiphase transport model, we have studied the elliptic flow v₂ of {φ} mesons from the reconstructed K⁺K^- decay channel at the top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider energy at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The dependences of v₂ on transverse momentum pT and collision centrality are presented and the rescattering effect of {φ} mesons in the hadronic phase is also investigated. The results show that experimental measurement of v₂ for {φ} mesons can retain the early collision information before the {φ} decays and that the {φ} v₂ value obeys the constituent quark number scaling that has been observed for other mesons and baryons. Our study indicates that the {φ} v₂ mostly reflects partonic-level collectivity developed during the early stage of the nucleus-nucleus collision and the strange and light up/down quarks have developed similar angular anistropy properties at the hadronization.