Monopole Production and Glasma Decay

TL;DR

This paper proposes that magnetic monopole production causes the rapid decay of gauge fields in the glasma, providing a mechanism consistent with the quick formation of quark-gluon plasma after heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a classical statistical field theory approach to demonstrate monopole production as the key process for glasma decay, a novel mechanism in this context.

Findings

Gauge fields decay rapidly into magnetic monopoles.

Comparison shows faster decay into monopoles than Nielsen-Olesen modes.

Monopole production explains the quick decay of the glasma.

Abstract

It has been discussed that quark gluon plasma is produced following the rapid decay of coherent color gauge fields generated immediately after high energy heavy ion collisions. But there are no convincing mechanisms known for the rapid decay of the gauge fields which satisfy phenomenological constraints on their lifetime. We show by using classical statistical field theory that the gauge fields rapidly decay into magnetic monopoles. For comparison, we show how fast they decay into Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes. We find that the rapid decay of the glasma is caused by the monopole production.