English

Equilibration and hydrodynamics at strong and weak coupling

Nuclear Theory 2017-10-31 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We give an updated overview of both weak and strong coupling methods to describe the approach to a plasma described by viscous hydrodynamics, a process now called hydrodynamisation. At weak coupling the very first moments after a heavy ion collision is described by the colour-glass condensate framework, but quickly thereafter the mean free path is long enough for kinetic theory to become applicable. Recent simulations indicate thermalization in a time t40(η/s)4/3/Tt\sim40(\eta/s)^{4/3}/T [1], with TT the temperature at that time and η/s\eta/s the shear viscosity divided by the entropy density. At (infinitely) strong coupling it is possible to mimic heavy ion collisions by using holography, which leads to a dual description of colliding gravitational shock waves. The plasma formed hydrodynamises within a time of 0.41/T0.41/T. A recent extension found corrections to this result for finite values of the coupling, when η/s\eta/s is bigger than the canonical value of 1/4π1/4\pi, which leads to t(0.41+1.6(η/s1/4π))/Tt\sim(0.41+1.6(\eta/s-1/4\pi))/T [2]. Future improvements include the inclusion of the effects of the running coupling constant in QCD.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1705.01556,
  title  = {Equilibration and hydrodynamics at strong and weak coupling},
  author = {Wilke van der Schee},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.01556},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

7 pages, 4 figures, talk presented at Quark Matter 2017 (Chicago)

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:36:07.794Z