Initial state and approach to equilibrium

TL;DR

This paper discusses the concept of far-from-equilibrium attractors in heavy-ion collisions, exploring their potential role in early thermalization and their robustness across different models and symmetries.

Contribution

It reviews the current research on far-from-equilibrium attractors and their implications for understanding thermalization in QCD.

Findings

Attractors appear in various dynamical models.

Potential presence of attractors in QCD dynamics.

Implications for early thermalization in heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract

A possible resolution of the early thermalisation puzzle is provided by the notion of far-from-equilibrium attractors which arise due to the specific kinematics of heavy-ion collisions. Attractors appear in a wide variety of dynamical models, and it is plausible that they also occur in QCD. The physical implications of these observations depend on how robust this effect is when typically made symmetry restrictions are relaxed. I briefly review this line of research and its perspectives.