Chiral Anomaly and Decay of Color Electric Field

TL;DR

This paper investigates quark pair production under color electric and magnetic fields using chiral anomaly, estimating the decay time of the field in high-energy heavy-ion collisions.

Contribution

It provides a novel estimate of the color electric field decay time in the presence of magnetic fields using chiral anomaly without explicit wavefunction calculations.

Findings

Decay time of color electric field is approximately 10 times the inverse saturation momentum.

The analysis applies to glasma in high-energy heavy-ion collisions.

The approach simplifies pair production analysis using anomaly formulas.

Abstract

Using the formula of chiral anomaly, we discuss the pair production of quarks under color electric field $\vec{E}$ without addressing explicit formula of quark's wavefunctions. The production is assumed to occur under the effect of color magnetic field $\vec{B}$ as well as the color electric field. We obtain the life time $t_c$ of the color electric field in the limit of $B\gg E$. Applying it to the glasma in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, we find that $t_c\simeq 10Q_s^{-1}$ with saturation momentum $Q_s$.