Evolution of the Disoriented Chiral Condensates in the Mean Field Approximation

Abstract

We study the dynamics of the chiral phase transition expected during the expansion of the quark-gluon plasma produced in a high energy hadron or heavy ion collision, using the $O(4)$ linear sigma model in the mean field approximation. Starting from an approximate equilibrium configuration at an initial proper time $τ$ in the disordered phase, we study the transition to the ordered broken symmetry phase as the system expands and cools. We give results for the proper time evolution of the effective pion mass and for the pion two point correlation function. We investigate the possibility of disoriented chiral condensate being formed during the expansion. In order to create large domains of disoriented chiral condensates low-momentum instabilities have to last for long enough periods of time. Our simulations show no instabilities for an initial thermal configuration. For the far-of-equilibrium cases studied, the instabilities are formed during the initial stages of the expansion survive for short proper times. For slow expansion rates even such configurations do not develop instabilities.