QCD thermalization: <i>Ab initio</i> approaches and interdisciplinary connections
Jürgen Berges, Michal P. Heller, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, Raju Venugopalan
Abstract
Evidence suggests that terrestrial accelerators can create energy densities yielding a state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). The QGP is the result of thermalization in quantum chromodynamics. Terrestrial accelerators collide protons and nuclei where the initial stages of interactions are far out of equilibrium. This review considers two limits: the weak coupling, high occupation limit and the strong coupling limit. While there is much room between these limits, a universal phenomena used to classify these broad descriptions is presented. This also demonstrates connections to strongly correlated systems in atomic and condensed matter physics, in cosmology, and to a holographic correspondence between strongly coupled theories and their gravitational duals.