Thermalization of the quark-gluon plasma and dynamical formation of Bose-Einstein Condensate

Abstract

We report recent progress on understanding the thermalization of the quark-gluon plasma during the early stage in a heavy ion collision. The initially high overpopulation in the pre-equilibrium gluonic matter (``glasma'') is shown to play a crucial role. The strongly interacting nature (and thus fast evolution) naturally arises as an {\em emergent property} of this pre-equilibrium matter where the intrinsic coupling is weak but the highly occupied gluon states coherently amplify the scattering. A possible transient Bose-Einstein Condensate is argued to form dynamically on a rather general ground. We develop the kinetic approach for describing this highly overpopulated system and find approximate scaling solutions as well as numerically study the onset of condensation. Finally we discuss possible phenomenological implications.