The Equilibration of a Parton Plasma Created In Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract

We study the equilibration of a parton plasma in terms of its parton compositions and its state of thermalization. In studying the evolution of the plasma, one has to assume a small value of the strong coupling constant. This value is by no means fixed. By varying this only parameter in our calculation, we show the dependence of equilibration on its magnitude. It is shown that both kinetic and parton equilibration are faster with increasing coupling but the plasma cools much more rapidly resulting in shortened lifetime. The degree of equilibration improves significantly for quarks and antiquarks but not so for gluons and the total generated entropy is reduced. With a coupling depending on the average parton energy, there is additional acceleration in the equilibration during the evolution.