QUARK-GLUON PLASMA AND THERMALIZATION

Abstract

In these lectures, I will attempt a pedagogical and qualitative introduction to the theory of equilibrium and thermalization of quark-gluon plasmas. I assume only that the reader is familiar with quantum field theory at zero temperature and with QCD as the theory of the strong interactions. I focus on the limit of small αs, which in principle should be relevant at extremely high temperature because of asymptotic freedom, and in any case provides a clean theoretical context in which to discuss a variety of phenomena. Topics discussed include the basic equilibrium formalism for finite-temperature quantum field theory, Debye screening, electric deconfinement, magnetic confinement, dimensional reduction, plasma waves, kinetic theory, hydrodynamic properties such as viscosity, the Landau–Pomeranchuk–Migdal effect, thermalization in (arbitrarily high energy) heavy ion collisions, and QCD plasma instabilities.