Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Scientific paper
2001-04-06
JHEP 0111 (2001) 039
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
10 pages, 2 tables, 5 figures, references added, submitted to JHEP
Scientific paper
10.1088/1126-6708/2001/11/039
We study the kinetic equilibration of gluons produced in the very early stages of a high energy heavy ion collision in a ``self-consistent'' relaxation time approximation. We compare two scenarios describing the initial state of the gluon system, namely the saturation and the minijet scenarios, both at RHIC and LHC energies. We argue that, in order to characterize kinetic equilibration, it is relevant to test the isotropy of various observables. As a consequence, we find in particular that in both scenarios elastic processes are not sufficient for the system to reach kinetic equilibrium at RHIC energies. More generally, we show that, contrary to what is often assumed in the literature, elastic collisions alone are not sufficient to rapidly achieve kinetic equilibration. Because of longitudinal expansion at early times, the actual equilibration time is at least of the order of a few fermis.
Schiff Dominique
Serreau Julien
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