Anisotropic parton escape is the dominant source of azimuthal anisotropy in transport models.

We trace the development of azimuthal anisotropy ( v n , n = 2 , 3 ) via parton–parton collision history in two transport models. The parton v n is studied as a function of the number of collisions of each parton in Au + Au and d + Au collisions at s NN = 200 GeV . It is found that the majority of v n comes from the anisotropic escape probability of partons, with no fundamental difference at low and high transverse momenta. The contribution to v n from hydrodynamic-type collective flow is found to be small. Only when the parton–parton cross-section is set unrealistically large does this contribution start to take over. Our findings challenge the current paradigm emerged from hydrodynamic comparisons to anisotropy data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]