Elliptic flow of phi mesons and strange quark collectivity

Based on a multiphase transport model, we have studied the elliptic flow v{sub 2} of {phi} mesons from the reconstructed K{sup +}K{sup -} decay channel at the top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider energy at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The dependences of v{sub 2} on transverse momentum p{sub T} and collision centrality are presented and the rescattering effect of {phi} mesons in the hadronic phase is also investigated. The results show that experimental measurement of v{sub 2} for {phi} mesons can retain the early collision information before the {phi} decays and that the {phi} v{sub 2} value obeys the constituent quark number scaling that has been observed for other mesons and baryons. Our study indicates that the {phi} v{sub 2} 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.