Coupled kinetic equations for quarks and gluons in the relaxation time approximation

TL;DR

This paper numerically solves coupled kinetic equations for quarks and gluons in a boost-invariant setting, revealing how a non-equilibrium mixture approaches hydrodynamics and how gluons influence bulk viscosity.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of coupled quark-gluon kinetic equations with Landau matching, highlighting the role of gluons in bulk viscosity and hydrodynamization.

Findings

Gluons contribute non-trivially to bulk viscosity when quarks are massive.

Hydrodynamization occurs earlier in shear than in bulk sectors.

Pressure ratios depend mainly on the ratio of relaxation to proper time.

Abstract

Kinetic equations for quarks and gluons are solved numerically in the relaxation time approximation for the case of one-dimensional boost-invariant geometry. Quarks are massive and described by the Fermi-Dirac statistics, while gluons are massless and obey Bose-Einstein statistics. The conservation laws for the baryon number, energy, and momentum lead to two Landau matching conditions which specify the coupling between the quark and gluon sectors and determine the proper-time dependence of the effective temperature and baryon chemical potential of the system. The numerical results illustrate how a non-equlibrium mixture of quarks and gluons approaches hydrodynamic regime described by the Navier-Stokes equations with appropriate forms of the kinetic coefficients. The shear viscosity of a mixture is the sum of the shear viscosities of quark and gluon components, while the bulk viscosity is given by the formula known for a gas of quarks, however, with the thermodynamic variables characterising the mixture. Thus, we find that massless gluons contribute in a non-trivial way to the bulk viscosity of a mixture, provided quarks are massive. We further observe the hydrodynamization effect which takes place earlier in the shear sector than in the bulk one. The numerical studies of the ratio of the longitudinal and transverse pressures show, to a good approximation, that it depends on the ratio of the relaxation and proper times only. This behaviour is connected with the existence of an attractor solution for conformal systems.