Quark-antiquark production from classical fields in heavy ion collisions: 1+1 dimensions

Abstract

Classical color fields produced by the small-x wave functions of colliding ultrarelativistic nuclei have been numerically computed. We set up the framework for computing the production of small-mass quark-antiquark pairs in these color fields by numerically integrating the Dirac equation. This computation is essential for understanding the conversion of the initial gluonic state to chemically equilibrated quark-gluon plasma. To illustrate and overcome technical difficulties associated with the longitudinal dimension, we first consider numerically the case of one time + one longitudinal space dimension.

24 pages, 10 figures. V2: stylistic modifications to figures, typos corrected, to be published in Phys. Rev. C