Observables in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions from two different transport approaches for the same initial conditions

International audienceFor nucleus-nucleus collisions at energies currently available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), we calculate observables in two different transport approaches, i.e., the n-body molecular dynamical model ``relativistic quantum molecular dynamics for strongly interacting matter with phase transition or crossover'' (RSP) and the two-body parton hadron string dynamics (PHSD), starting out from the same distribution in the initial energy density at the quark gluon plasma (QGP) formation time. The RSP dynamics is based on the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) Lagrangian, whereas in PHSD the partons are described by the dynamical quasiparticle model (DQPM). Despite the very different description of the parton properties and their interactions and of the hadronization in both approaches, the final transverse momentum distributions of pions turn out to be quite similar, which is less visible for the strange mesons owing to the large NJL cross sections involved. Our findings can be attributed, in part, to a partial thermalization of the quark degrees of freedom in central Au + Au collisions for both approaches. The rapidity distribution of mesons shows a stronger sensitivity to the nature of the degrees of freedom involved and to their interaction strength in the QGP