Modelling early stages of relativistic heavy-ion collisions

M. Ruggieri; A. Puglisi; L. Oliva; S. Plumari; F. Scardina; V. Greco

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201611703014

EPJ

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Proceedings

Open Access

EPJ Web of Conferences 117, 03014 (2016)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201611703014

Modelling early stages of relativistic heavy-ion collisions

M. Ruggieri¹, A. Puglisi¹^,2, L. Oliva¹^,2, S. Plumari¹^,2, F. Scardina¹^,2 and V. Greco¹^,2

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Catania, Via S. Sofia 64, I-95125 Catania
² INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Via S. Sofia 62, I-95123 Catania, Italy

Published online: 11 May 2016

Abstract

In this study we model early time dynamics of relativistic heavy ion collisions by an initial color-electric field which then decays to a plasma by the Schwinger mechanism. The dynamics of the many particles system produced by the decay is described by relativistic kinetic theory, taking into account the backreaction on the color field by solving self-consistently the kinetic and the field equations. Our main results concern isotropization and thermalization for a 1+1D expanding geometry. In case of small η/s (η/s ≲ 0.3) we find τ_{isotropization} ≈ 0.8 fm/c and τ_{thermalization} ≈ 1 fm/c in agreement with the common lore of hydrodynamics.

© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences - SIF, 2016

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