Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Scientific paper
2007-01-29
J.Phys.G34:S429-436,2007
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
8 pages, 4 figures, Invited plenary talk given at the 19th International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Colli
Scientific paper
10.1088/0954-3899/34/8/S31
Despite the apparent success of ideal hydrodynamics in describing the elliptic flow data which have been produced at Brookhaven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, one lingering question remains: is the use of ideal hydrodynamics at times t < 1 fm/c justified? In order to justify its use a method for rapidly producing isotropic thermal matter at RHIC energies is required. One of the chief obstacles to early isotropization/thermalization is the rapid longitudinal expansion of the matter during the earliest times after the initial nuclear impact. As a result of this expansion the parton distribution functions become locally anisotropic in momentum space. In contrast to locally isotropic plasmas anisotropic plasmas have a spectrum of soft unstable modes which are characterized by exponential growth of transverse chromo-magnetic/-electric fields at short times. This instability is the QCD analogue of the Weibel instability of QED. Parametrically the chromo-Weibel instability provides the fastest method for generation of soft background fields and dominates the short-time dynamics of the system.
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