Color-glass condensate

About: Color-glass condensate is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 885 publications have been published within this topic receiving 35169 citations.

CGC and initial state effects in Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract: A brief review of the phenomenological studies in the field of heavy ion collisions based on the Color Glass Condensate theory and, in particular, of those relying in the use of the BK equation including running coupling effects is presented.

Thermalization of Color Gauge Fields in High Energy Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract: We discuss the quantum mechanical decay of the color magnetic field generated initially during high-energy heavy-ion collisions. The decay is caused by Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes and is accomplished possibly in a period <1 fm/c. We show that the decay products (i.e., incoherent gluons) may be thermalized in a sufficiently short period (<1 fm/c). The precise determination of the period is made by calculating the two-point function of the color magnetic field in a color glass condensate model.

Hunting the quark gluon plasma

Abstract: The U.S. Department of Energy's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) construction project was completed at BNL in 1999, with the first data-taking runs in the summer of 2000. Since then the early measurements at RHIC have yielded a wealth of data, from four independent detectors, each with its international collaboration of scientists: BRAHMS, PHENIX, PHOBOS, and STAR [1]. For the first time, collisions of heavy nuclei have been carried out at colliding-beam energies that have previously been accessible only for high-energy physics experiments with collisions of ''elementary'' particles such as protons and electrons. It is at these high energies that the predictions of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the fundamental theory that describes the role of quarks and gluons in nuclear matter, come into play, and new phenomena are sought that may illuminate our view of the basic structure of matter on the sub-atomic scale, with important implications for the origins of matter on the cosmic scale. The RHIC experiments have recorded data from collisions of gold nuclei at the highest energies ever achieved in man-made particle accelerators. These collisions, of which hundreds of millions have now been examined, result in final states of unprecedented complexity, with thousands of produced particles radiatingmore » from the nuclear collision. All four of the RHIC experiments have moved quickly to analyze these data, and have begun to understand the phenomena that unfold from the moment of collision as these particles are produced. In order to provide benchmarks of simpler interactions against which to compare the gold-gold collisions, the experiments have gathered comparable samples of data from collisions of a very light nucleus (deuterium) with gold nuclei, as well as proton-proton collisions, all with identical beam energies and experimental apparatus. The early measurements have revealed compelling evidence for the existence of a new form of nuclear matter at extremely high density and temperature--a medium in which the predictions of QCD can be tested, and new phenomena explored, under conditions where the relevant degrees of freedom, over nuclear volumes, are expected to be those of quarks and gluons, rather than of hadrons. This is the realm of the quark gluon plasma, the predicted state of matter whose existence and properties are now being explored by the RHIC experiments.« less