Critical Opacity - a possible explanation of the fast thermalisation times seen in RHIC experiments

Abstract

The Nambu Jona-Lasinio Lagrangian offers an explication of the seemingly contradictory observations that a) the energy loss in the entrance channel of heavy ion reactions is not sufficient to thermalize the system and that b) the observed hadron cross sections are in almost perfect agreement with hydrodynamical calculations. According to this scenario, a critical opacity develops close to the chiral phase transition which equilibrates and hadronizes the expanding system very effectively. It creates as well radial flow and, if the system is not isotropic, finite $v_2$ values.