Local equilibrium of the quark-gluon plasma

Abstract

Within kinetic theory, we look for local equilibrium configurations of the quark-gluon plasma by maximizing the local entropy. We use the well-established transport equations in the Vlasov limit, supplemented with the Waldmann-Snider collision terms. Two different classes of local equilibrium solutions are found. The first one corresponds to the configurations that comply with the so-called collisional invariants. The second one is given by the distribution functions that cancel the collision terms, representing the most probable binary interactions with soft gluon exchange in the t-channel. The two sets of solutions agree with each other if we go beyond these dominant processes and take into account subleading quark-antiquark annihilation/creation and gluon number non-conserving processes. The local equilibrium state appears to be colorful, as the color charges are not locally neutralized. Properties of such an equilibrium state are analyzed. In particular, the related hydrodynamic equations of a colorful fluid are derived. Possible neutralization processes are also briefly discussed.

arXiv comment20 pages; minor changes, to be published in Phys. Rev. D

References in corpus (12)

• Elliptic flow in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV
• Transport coefficients in high temperature gauge theories: (II) Beyond leading log
• Transport coefficients in high temperature gauge theories: (I) Leading-log results
• The Quark-Gluon Plasma: Collective Dynamics and Hard Thermal Loops
• Effective Kinetic Theory for High Temperature Gauge Theories
• Early thermalization at RHIC
• Effective dynamics of soft non-abelian gauge fields at finite temperature
• Hot B violation, color conductivity, and log(1/alpha) effects
• A Boltzmann Equation for the QCD Plasma
• Effective Transport Equations for non-Abelian Plasmas
• Non-Abelian Fluid Dynamics in Lagrangian Formulation
• Chern-Simons Reduction and non-Abelian Fluid Mechanics

Cited by in corpus (11)

• What Do Electromagnetic Plasmas Tell Us about Quark-Gluon Plasma?
• Chromo-Hydrodynamic Approach to the Unstable Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Color path-integral Monte-Carlo simulations of quark-gluon plasma: Thermodynamic and transport properties
• Chromohydrodynamical instabilities induced by relativistic jets
• Whitening of the Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Effective dynamics of a nonabelian plasma out of equilibrium
• Primordial Black Holes with QCD Color Charge
• Color path-integral Monte Carlo simulations of quark-gluon plasma
• A New Approach to Non-Abelian Hydrodynamics
• Debye Screening of Non-Abelian Plasmas in Curved Spacetimes
• Exciting gauge unstable modes of the quark-gluon plasma by relativistic jets