Triple-quark elastic scatterings and thermalization

Abstract

Triple-quark elastic scattering amplitudes from perturbative QCD are first calculated and then used in a transport equation to study the thermalization of quark matter. By examining momentum isotropy to which the transport equation leads, we can determine thermalization time and offer an initial thermal quark distribution function. With an anisotropic initial quark distribution, which is relevant to quark matter initially created in a central Au-Au collision at \sqrt {s_{NN}}=200 GeV, the transport equation gives a time of the order of 1.8 fm/c for quark matter itself to thermalize by the triple-quark scatterings.