Energy-momentum tensor of the dilute (3+1)D glasma

Abstract

We present a succinct formulation of the energy-momentum tensor of the glasma characterizing the initial color fields in relativistic heavy-ion collisions in the color glass condensate effective theory. We derive concise expressions for the (3+1)D dynamical evolution of symmetric nuclear collisions in the weak field approximation employing a generalized McLerran-Venugopalan model with nontrivial longitudinal correlations. Utilizing Monte Carlo integration, we calculate in unprecedented detail non-trivial rapidity profiles of early time observables at RHIC and LHC energies, including transverse energy densities and eccentricities. For our setup with broken boost invariance, we carefully discuss the placement of the origin of the Milne frame and interpret the components of the energy-momentum tensor. We find longitudinal flow that deviates from standard Bjorken flow in the (3+1)D case and provide a geometric interpretation of this effect. Furthermore, we observe a universal shape in the flanks of the rapidity profiles regardless of collision energy and predict that limiting fragmentation should also hold at LHC energies. Published by the American Physical Society 2024