Jet energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma by stream instabilities
- Instituto de Ciencias del Espacio (IEEC/CSIC), Campus Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Facultat de Ciencies, Torre C5 E-08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona (Spain)
- Department of Physics, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 17325 (United States)
We study the evolution of the plasma instabilities induced by two jets of particles propagating in opposite directions and crossing a thermally equilibrated non-Abelian plasma. In order to simplify the analysis we assume that the two jets of partons can be described with uniform distribution functions in coordinate space and by Gaussian distribution functions in momentum space. We find that while crossing the quark-gluon plasma, the jets of particles excite unstable chromomagnetic and chromoelectric modes. These fields interact with the particles (or hard modes) of the plasma inducing the production of currents; thus, the energy lost by the jets is absorbed by both the gauge fields and the hard modes of the plasma. We compare the outcome of the numerical simulations with the analytical calculation performed assuming that the jets of particles can be described by a tsunamilike distribution function. We find qualitative and semiquantitative agreement between the results obtained with the two methods.
- OSTI ID:
- 21431033
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 81, Issue 7; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.81.074036; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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