Scenario for Ultrarelativistic Nuclear Collisions: II. Geometry of quantum states at the earliest stage

Abstract

We suggest that the ultrarelativistic collisions of heavy ions provide the simplest situation for the study of strong interactions which can be understood from first principles and without any model assumptions about the microscopic structure of the colliding nuclei. We argue that the boost-invariant geometry of the collision, and the existence of hard partons in the final states, both supported by the data, make a sufficient basis for the quantum theory of the phenomenon. We conclude that the quantum nature of the entire process is defined by its global geometry, which is enforced by a macroscopic finite size of the colliding objects. In this paper, we study the qualitative aspects of the theory and review its development in two subsequent papers. Our key result is that the effective mass of the quark in the expanding system formed in the collision of the two nuclei is gradually built up reaching its maximum by the time the quark mode becomes sufficiently localized. The chromo-magneto-static interaction of the color currents flowing in the rapidity direction is the main mechanism which is responsible for the generation of the effective mass of the soft quark mode and therefore, for the physical scale at the earliest stage of the collision.