Isotropization from color field condensate in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

The expanding fireball shortly after a heavy ion collision may be qualitatively described by a condensate of color fields or gluons which is analogous to Bose-Einsteincondensation for massive bosonic particles. This condensate is a transient non-equilibrium phenomenon and breaks Lorentz-boost symmetry. The dynamics of color field condensates involves collective excitations and is rather different from the perturbative scattering of gluons. In particular, it provides for an efficient mechanism to render the local pressure approximately isotropic after a short time of 0.2 fm/c. We suggest that an isotropic color field condensate may play a central role for a simple description of prethermalization and isotropization in the early stages of the collision. © The Authors.