Relaxation time for quark spin and thermal vorticity alignment in heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

We compute the relaxation time for quark/antiquark spin and thermal vorticity alignment in a quark-gluon plasma at finite temperature and quark chemical potential. We model the interaction of quark/antiquark spin with thermal vorticity as driven by a phenomenological modification of the elementary quark interaction with gluons. We find that in a scenario where the angular velocity of the quark-gluon plasma produced in a peripheral heavy-ion collision is small, quarks/antiquarks take a long time to align their spin with the vorticity. However, when the angular velocity created in the reaction is large, the alignment is efficient and well within the lifetime of the system created in the reaction. The relaxation time is larger for antiquarks which points out to a difference for the polarization of hadrons and antihadrons when this alignment is preserved during hadronization.

arXiv comment6 pages, 6 figures, discussion extended, version accepted for publication in Physics Letters B

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• Relativistic second-order dissipative spin hydrodynamics from the method of moments
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• Relativistic dissipative spin hydrodynamics from kinetic theory with a nonlocal collision term
• Vorticity and Spin Polarization --- A Theoretical Perspective
• Damping of spin waves
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• Spin versus Helicity Equilibration Times and Lagrangian for Strange Quarks in Rotating Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Resummed spin hydrodynamics from quantum kinetic theory
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• Rotating gluon system and confinement
• Phase diagram of helically imbalanced QCD matter
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• Kubo formulas for spin polarization in dissipative relativistic spin hydrodynamics: a first-order gradient expansion approach
• Quark spin - thermal vorticity alignment and the Lambda, anti-Lambda polarization in heavy-ion collisions