English

Non-Equilibrium Phase Transition in Rapidly Expanding Matter

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-10-31 v2

Abstract

Non-equilibrium features of a first order phase transition from the quark-gluon plasma to a hadronic gas in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are discussed. It is demonstrated that strong collective expansion may lead to the fragmentation of the plasma phase into droplets surrounded by undersaturated hadronic gas. Subsequent hadronization of droplets will generate strong non-statistical fluctuations in the hadron rapidity distribution in individual events. The strongest fluctuations are expected in the vicinity of the phase transition threshold.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-ph/9811307,
  title  = {Non-Equilibrium Phase Transition in Rapidly Expanding Matter},
  author = {I. N. Mishustin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/9811307},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

11 pages in RevTeX, 1 postscript figure, significantly modified manuscript to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

R2 v1 2026-07-22T14:47:28.982Z