The thermalization of soft modes in non-expanding isotropic quark gluon plasmas

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how elastic and inelastic collisions influence the rapid thermalization of soft modes in a static, isotropic quark-gluon plasma, highlighting the suppression of Bose condensate formation by radiative processes.

Contribution

It provides an analytic kinetic equation describing the interplay of collisions in thermalizing soft modes in a simplified quark-gluon plasma model.

Findings

Inelastic collisions hinder Bose condensate formation.

Elastic and inelastic processes determine thermalization time scales.

Soft modes equilibrate faster than hard modes.

Abstract

We discuss the role of elastic and inelastic collisions and their interplay in the thermalization of the quark-gluon plasma. We consider a simplified situation of a static plasma, spatially uniform and isotropic in momentum space. We focus on the small momentum region, which equilibrates first, and on a short time scale. We obtain a simple kinetic equation that allows for an analytic description of the most important regimes. The present analysis suggests that the formation of a Bose condensate, expected when only elastic collisions are present, is strongly hindered by the inelastic, radiative, processes.