Temperature-dependent shear viscosity in a multi-phase transport model for ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC

Using a multi-phase transport model, we study the effect of temperature-dependent specific shear viscosity on transverse momentum spectra and elliptic flow of particles produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions using a transport based approach. The elliptic flow at RHIC energy is insensitive to the temperature-dependent shear viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) and dominated by the value of the viscosity in the critical temperature region. At LHC energy, the elliptic flow is highly affected by the temperature dependence of the QGP shear viscosity.