Parton Percolation in Nuclear Collisions
arXiv:hep-ph/0212046
Abstract
An essential prerequisite for quark-gluon plasma production in nuclear collisions is cross-talk between the partons from different nucleons in the colliding nuclei. The initial density of partons is determined by the parton distribution functions obtained from deep inelastic lepton-hadron scattering and by the nuclear geometry; it increases with increasing and/or . In the transverse collision plane, this results in clusters of overlapping partons, and at some critical density, the cluster size suddenly reaches the size of the system. The onset of large-scale cross-talk through color connection thus occurs as geometric critical behavior. Percolation theory specifies the details of this transition, which leads to the formation of a condensate of deconfined partons. Given sufficient time, this condensate could eventually thermalize. However, already the onset of parton condensation in the initial state, without subsequent thermalization, leads to a number of interesting observable consequences.
15 pages, 18 figures; Lectures at the International School of Physics "Enrico Fermi", Varenna/Italy, 6.-16. 8. 2002
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