2016/09/08 by Jean-Paul Blaizot, Jinfeng Liao, Yacine Mehtar-Tani
Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Elastic collision #Electron #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Inelastic collision #Isotropy #Momentum (technical analysis) #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Physics #Plasma #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Quark–gluon plasma #Thermalisation #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2017.02.003
arxiv created 2016/09/08 · openalex publication_date 2017/02/10 · arxiv updated 2017/04/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We discuss the role of elastic and inelastic collisions and their interplay in the thermalization of the quark-gluon plasma. We consider a simplified situation of a static plasma, spatially uniform and isotropic in momentum space. We focus on the small momentum region, which equilibrates first, and on a short time scale. We obtain a simple kinetic equation that allows for an analytic description of the most important regimes. The present analysis suggests that the formation of a Bose condensate, expected when only elastic collisions are present, is strongly hindered by the inelastic, radiative, processes.