Unstable Quark-Gluon Plasma at LHC

Abstract

Coupling of the quark-gluon plasma from the early stage of heavy-ion collisions is argued to be weaker at LHC than at RHIC. For this reason, the role of instabilities - the pre-equilibrium plasma is unstable with respect to chromomagnetic modes - will be enhanced. The instabilities isotropize the system and speed up the process of equilibration. A possibility to observe direct signals of the instabilities is considered.