Thermalization of weakly coupled non-Abelian plasmas at next-to-leading order

TL;DR

This paper uses advanced QCD kinetic theory with NLO corrections to analyze how weakly coupled non-Abelian plasmas reach thermal equilibrium, showing that NLO effects generally speed up thermalization.

Contribution

It introduces the inclusion of next-to-leading order corrections in kinetic theory to study plasma thermalization, demonstrating their impact on thermalization times.

Findings

NLO corrections are manageable across various couplings.

NLO effects tend to decrease thermalization time.

The study covers different initial conditions for plasmas.

Abstract

We employ the QCD kinetic theory, including next-to-leading(NLO) order corrections in coupling constant, to study the evolution of weakly coupled non-Abelian plasmas towards thermal equilibrium. For two characteristic far-from-equilibrium systems with either under- or over-occupied initial conditions, the NLO corrections remain well under control for a wide range of couplings, and the overall effect of NLO corrections is a reduction in the time required for thermalization.