Eur. Phys. J. A (2006) 29: 71-75
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2005-10304-y

Quark-Gluon-Plasma Thermalization

Signals of a Weibel instability in the melting color glass condensate

¹ Fakultät für Physik, Universität Bielefeld, D-33615, Bielefeld, Germany
² Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, 11973, Upton, NY, USA

^* e-mail: paulrom@Physik.Uni-Bielefeld.de

Received: 21 October 2005
Accepted: 2 January 2006
Published online: 23 August 2006

Abstract

Based on our work hep-ph/0510121, we discuss further the numerical study of classical SU(2) 3+1-D Yang-Mills equations for matter produced in a high-energy heavy-ion collision. The growth of the amplitude of fluctuations as exp(Γ) (where g ²μ is a scale arising from the saturation of gluons in the nuclear wave function) is shown to be robust over a wide range of initial amplitudes that violate boost invariance. We argue that this growth is due to a non-Abelian Weibel instability, the scale of which is set by a dynamically generated plasmon mass. We discuss the relation of Γ to the prediction from kinetic theory.