Onset of collective flow due to Weibel instabilities
ORAL
Abstract
Since the local momentum density is highly anisotropic at the early stage of an ultra-relativistic nuclear collision, it is expected that Weibel instabilities will generate color currents with a characteristic (preferentially transverse) wave vector. As demonstrated first by Amp{\'e}re, different currents repel and in the SU(3) plasma there is therefore a net tendency for the Weibel currents to experience a mutual repulsion. This feature is phenomenologically important since the associated increase of the pressure provides a mechanism for the early development of collective flow. For the purpose of establishing a framework for examining this effect, we have extended our earlier work to encompass the evolving correlation function for the local momentum density. Starting from the fluctuations in a free gas of gluons, quarks and anti-quarks, we treat the self-consistent feed-back of the amplified chromodynamic fields on the phase-space densities.
*Supported in part by the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Physics Division of the U.S.\ Department of Energy under contract No.\ DE-AC03-76SF00098.
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