April 2, 2004
In this lecture we review recent progress in various aspects of non-equilibrium QFT with respect to relativistic heavy ion collisions. As a first and rather general study we summarize our (numerical) investigations for a dissipative quantum time evolution of $\phi^4$-field theory for a spatially homogeneous system in 2+1 space-time dimensions on the basis of the Kadanoff-Baym equations. The initial conditions can be chosen arbitrarily and far from equilibrium. The calculations demonstrate how thermalization and chemical equilibration is achieved ab initio from the underlying QFT. As a possible candidate for a non-equilibrium phase transition phenomena we then adress the stochastic formation of disoriented chiral condensates. Finally we elaborate on a new 3+1 dimensional Monte Carlo parton cascade solving kinetic Boltzmann processes including inelastic multiplication processes (gg<->ggg) in an unified manner, where the back reaction channel is treated for the first time fully consistently.
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August 6, 2019
We present an introductory review of the early time dynamics of high-energy heavy-ion collisions and the kinetics of high temperature QCD. The equilibration mechanisms in the quark-gluon plasma uniquely reflect the non-abelian and ultra-relativistic character of the many body system. Starting with a brief expose of the key theoretical and experimental questions, we provide an overview of the theoretical tools employed in weak coupling studies of the early time non-equilibrium...
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We discuss the question of thermalization during the very early stages of a high energy heavy ion collision. We review a recent study where we explicitely showed that, contrarily to a widely used assumption, elastic collisions between the produced partons are not sufficient to rapidly drive the system toward local kinetic equilibrium. We then briefly discuss recent developments concerning the description of kinetic equilibration and comment on some open issues related to phen...
August 6, 2003
In this article we study the time evolution of an interacting field theoretical system, i.e. \phi^4-field theory in 2+1 space-time dimensions, on the basis of the Kadanoff-Baym equations for a spatially homogeneous system including the self-consistent tadpole and sunset self-energies. We find that equilibration is achieved only by inclusion of the sunset self-energy. Simultaneously, the time evolution of the scalar particle spectral function is studied for various initial sta...
January 18, 2001
This work is devoted to the study of relaxation--dissipation processes in systems described by Quantum Field Theory. In the first part, I focus on the phi^4 scalar quantum field theory in finite volume in the large N limit. I find that the zero-mode quantum fluctuations cannot grow macroscopically large starting from microscopic initial conditions, while the long-wavelength fluctuations do scale with the linear size of the system, signalling dynamical infrared properties quit...
November 28, 2017
The impact of non-equilibrium effects on the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions is investigated by comparing a non-equilibrium transport approach, the Parton-Hadron-String-Dynamics (PHSD), to a 2D+1 viscous hydrodynamical model, which is based on the assumption of local equilibrium and conservation laws. Starting the hydrodynamical model from the same non-equilibrium initial condition as in the PHSD, using an equivalent lQCD Equation-of-State (EoS), the same transport coefficie...
March 27, 2017
The impact of non-equilibrium effects on the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions is investigated by comparing a non-equilibrium transport approach, the Parton-Hadron-String-Dynamics (PHSD), to a 2D+1 viscous hydrodynamical model, which is based on the assumption of local equilibrium and conservation laws. Starting the hydrodynamical model from the same non-equilibrium initial condition as in the PHSD, using an equivalent lQCD Equation-of-State (EoS), the same transport coefficie...
August 5, 2008
This review provides a written version of the lectures presented at the Schladming Winter School 2008, Austria, on 'Nonequilibrium Aspects of Quantum Field Theory'. In particular, it shows the way from quantum-field theory - in two-particle irreducible approximation - to the Kadanoff-Baym (KB) equations and various approximations schemes of the KB equations in phase space. This ultimately leads to the formulation of an off-shell transport theory that well incorporates the und...
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In this work we study how quantum fluctuations modify the quantum evolution of an initially classical field theory. We consider a scalar $\phi^4$ theory coupled to an external source as a toy model for the Color Glass Condensate description of the early time dynamics of heavy-ion collisions. We demonstrate that quantum fluctuations considerably modify the time evolution driving the system to evolve in accordance with ideal hydrodynamics. We attempt to understand the mechanism...
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