Thermalization of gluons in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions by including three-body interactions in a parton cascade

Journal Article · Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 2005 · Physical Review. C, Nuclear Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.71.064901· OSTI ID:20698767

Zhe, Xu ^[1]; Greiner, Carsten ^[2]

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1. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Justus-Liebig-Universitaet Giessen, D-35392 Giessen (Germany)
2. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universitaet Frankfurt, D-60054 Frankfurt (Germany)

We develop a new 3 + 1 dimensional Monte Carlo cascade solving the kinetic on-shell Boltzmann equations for partons including the inelastic gg{r_reversible}ggg pQCD processes. The back reaction channel is treated - for the first time - fully consistently within this scheme. An extended stochastic method is used to solve the collision integral. The frame dependence and convergency are studied for a fixed tube with thermal initial conditions. The detailed numerical analysis shows that the stochastic method is fully covariant and that convergency is achieved more efficiently than within a standard geometrical formulation of the collision term, especially for high gluon interaction rates. The cascade is then applied to simulate parton evolution and to investigate thermalization of gluons for a central Au+Au collision at RHIC energy. For this study the initial conditions are assumed to be generated by independent minijets with p{sub T}>p{sub 0}=2 GeV. With that choice it is demonstrated that overall kinetic equilibration is driven mainly by the inelastic processes and is achieved on a scale of 1 fm/c. The further evolution of the expanding gluonic matter in the central region then shows almost an ideal hydrodynamical behavior. In addition, full chemical equilibration of the gluons follows on a longer time scale of about 3 fm/c.

• OSTI ID: 20698767
• Journal Information: Physical Review. C, Nuclear Physics, Vol. 71, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.71.064901; (c) 2005 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2813
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BOLTZMANN EQUATION
BROOKHAVEN RHIC
COLLISION INTEGRALS
GEV RANGE
GLUON-GLUON INTERACTIONS
GLUONS
HEAVY ION REACTIONS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PARTON MODEL
PARTONS
PERTURBATION THEORY
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUARK MATTER
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
STATISTICAL MODELS
STOCHASTIC PROCESSES
THERMALIZATION
THREE-BODY PROBLEM