Thermalization of the world's smallest fluids: recent developments

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in understanding how matter thermalizes in ultrarelativistic heavy ion and high multiplicity proton collisions, highlighting complex many-body phenomena and ongoing scientific puzzles.

Contribution

It offers a perspective on unresolved scientific questions related to thermalization processes in high-energy collisions, inspired by Gerry Brown's approach to complex problems.

Findings

Insights into thermalization mechanisms in heavy ion collisions

Identification of open scientific puzzles in high-energy physics

Connections between different collision systems and many-body phenomena

Abstract

The late Gerry Brown was not shy to tackle complex scientific problems that took time to play out but yielded in the end a deeper understanding of many-body phenomena. In this note, prepared for a memorial volume in his honor, we provide a perspective on a couple of outstanding scientific puzzles that have their origin in our understanding of the thermalization of matter in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, and possibly, in high multiplicity proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions.