Schwinger Mechanism with Energy Dissipation in Glasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates how color electric fields in glasma decay via quark pair production, leading to rapid thermalization and momentum gain, using the chiral anomaly in high-energy heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a model for the decay of color electric fields in glasma through quark pair production, incorporating finite conductivity and the chiral anomaly, highlighting rapid thermalization mechanisms.

Findings

Color electric field decays within Q_s^{-1} due to quark pair production.

Quarks thermalize quickly if their temperature is below Q_s.

Quarks gain longitudinal momentum of order Q_s from electric field acceleration.

Abstract

Initial states of glasma in high energy heavy ion collisions are longitudinal classical color electric and magnetic fields. Assuming finite color electric conductivity, we show that the color electric field decays by quark pair production with the life time of the order of $Q_s^{-1}$, i.e. the inverse of the saturation momentum. Quarks and anti-quarks created in the pair production are immediately thermalized as far as their temperature $\beta^{-1}$ is lower than $Q_s$. Namely, a relaxation time of the quarks to be thermalized is much shorter than $Q_s^{-1}$ when $\beta^{-1} \ll Q_s$. We also show that the quarks acquire longitudinal momentum of the order of $Q_s$ by the acceleration of the electric field. To discuss the quark pair production, we use chiral anomaly which has been shown to be very powerful tool in the presence of strong magnetic field.