Universality far from equilibrium: From superfluid Bose gases to heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Isolated quantum systems in extreme conditions can exhibit unusually large occupancies per mode. This over-population gives rise to new universality classes of many-body systems far from equilibrium. We present theoretical evidence that important aspects of non-Abelian plasmas in the ultra-relativistic limit admit a dual description in terms of a Bose condensed scalar field theory.

5 pages, 5 figures, PRL version, minor changes