We determine the dynamical attractors associated with anisotropic hydrodynamics (aHydro) and the DNMR equations for a $0+1\mathrm{d}$ conformal system using kinetic theory in the relaxation time approximation. We compare our results to the nonequilibrium attractor obtained from the exact solution of the $0+1\mathrm{d}$ conformal Boltzmann equation, the Navier-Stokes theory, and the second-order Mueller-Israel-Stewart theory. We demonstrate that the aHydro attractor equation resums an infinite number of terms in the inverse Reynolds number. The resulting resummed aHydro attractor possesses a positive longitudinal-to-transverse pressure ratio and is virtually indistinguishable from the exact attractor. This suggests that an optimized hydrodynamic treatment of kinetic theory involves a resummation not only in gradients (Knudsen number) but also in the inverse Reynolds number. We also demonstrate that the DNMR result provides a better approximation of the exact kinetic theory attractor than the Mueller-Israel-Stewart theory. Finally, we introduce a new method for obtaining approximate aHydro equations which relies solely on an expansion in the inverse Reynolds number. We then carry this expansion out to the third order, and compare these third-order results to the exact kinetic theory solution.

• Received 27 September 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.036020