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arXiv:1410.7309

Time evolution of gluon coherent state and its von Neumann entropy in heavy-ion collisions

Hideaki Iida, Teiji Kunihiro, Akira Ohnishi A, TORU T. TAKAHASHI

Published Oct 27, 2014• 0 citations
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Abstract

We propose a new prescription for evaluating a von Neumann entropy in the initial stage of high-energy heavy-ion collisions utilizing the time evolution of classical Yang-Mills (CYM) field: The von Neumann entropy is computed for the quantum coherent states constructed so as to give the classical gluon fields as the expectation values. The entropy is to be liberated when the complete decoherence is achieved. As a demonstration, the time evolution of the CYM dynamics is solved with an initial condition which mimics the Glasma state, though in a non-expanding geometry; the Glasma state is characterized by the longitudinal color-electric and -magnetic fields with gluon fields' fluctuations around it. We find that the initial longitudinal fluctuations of the fields play essential roles for the entropy production in two ways: First, the field fluctuations at $t=0$ themselves act as a source of the von Neumann entropy prepared before the time evolution. Second, the initial fluctuations triggers field instabilities, and hence the larger the strength of them, the more the entropy production at later time.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1410.7309

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We propose a new prescription for evaluating a von Neumann entropy in the initial stage of high-energy heavy-ion collisions utilizing the time evolution of classical Yang-Mills (CYM) field: The von Neumann entropy is computed for the quantum coherent states constructed so as to give the classical gluon fields as the expectation values. The entropy is to be liberated when the complete decoherence is achieved. As a demonstration, the time evolution of the CYM dynamics is solved with an initial condition which mimics the Glasma state, though in a non-expanding geometry; the Glasma state is characterized by the longitudinal color-electric and -magnetic fields with gluon fields' fluctuations around it. We find that the initial longitudinal fluctuations of the fields play essential roles for the entropy production in two ways: First, the field fluctuations at t=0t=0t=0 themselves act as a source of the von Neumann entropy prepared before the time evolution. Second, the initial fluctuations triggers field instabilities, and hence the larger the strength of them, the more the entropy production at later time.
Abstract We compute the entropy per particle, S / N , produced by the decoherence of a coherent state interacting with an environment, using an analytical open quantum system approach. The coherent state considered is characterized by occupation numbers borrowed from the Glasma fields produced in the early stages of high-energy nuclear collisions. The environment is modeled as the vacuum, and decoherence arises from the interaction of the state with vacuum fluctuations. We describe the system–environment interaction via a phase-damping model, which represents continuous measurements on the system without altering its energy or particle number. Starting from the occupation numbers typical of the Glasma in high-energy proton–nucleus and nucleus–nucleus collisions, we find that the final S / N after decoherence is lower than that of a two-dimensional thermal bath of ultra-relativistic gluons, except for proton–nucleus collisions at small values of gμg\mugμ g μ . Our results indicate that quantum decoherence alone does not generate sufficient entropy to transform the initial coherent state into a thermalized gluon bath.
We investigate the thermalization process from a glasma-like initial condition in a static box in terms of the Husimi–Wehrl (HW) entropy defined with the Husimi function, a quantum distribution function in a phase space. We calculate the semiclassical time evolution of the HW entropy in Yang–Mills field theory with the phenomenological initial field configuration given by mimicking the McLerran–Venugopalan model in a static box, which has instability triggered by initial field fluctuations. Husimi–Wehrl entropy production implies the thermalization of the system and it reflects the underlying dynamics such as chaoticity and instability. By comparing the production rate with the Kolmogorov–Sinaï rate, we find that the HW entropy production rate is significantly larger than that expected from chaoticity. We also show that the HW entropy is finally saturated when the system reaches a quasi-stationary state. The saturation time of the HW entropy is comparable with that of pressure isotropization, which is around 1 fm/|ccc| in the present calculation.
We investigate the thermalization process from a glasma-like initial condition in a static box in terms of the Husimi–Wehrl (HW) entropy defined with the Husimi function, a quantum distribution function in a phase space. We calculate the semiclassical time evolution of the HW entropy in Yang–Mills field theory with the phenomenological initial field configuration given by mimicking the McLerran–Venugopalan model in a static box, which has instability triggered by initial field fluctuations. Husimi–Wehrl entropy production implies the thermalization of the system and it reflects the underlying dynamics such as chaoticity and instability. By comparing the production rate with the Kolmogorov–Sinaï rate, we find that the HW entropy production rate is significantly larger than that expected from chaoticity. We also show that the HW entropy is finally saturated when the system reaches a quasi-stationary state. The saturation time of the HW entropy is comparable with that of pressure isotropization, which is around 1 fm/c in the present calculation.
We study the time evolution of the density matrix of a high energy quark propagating in a dense QCD medium where it undergoes elastic collisions (radiation is ignored in the present study). The medium is modeled as a stochastic color field with a Gaussian correlation function. This allows us to eliminate the medium degrees of freedom and obtain a simple master equation for the evolution of the reduced density matrix of the high energy quark, making use of approximations that are familiar in the description of open quantum systems. This master equation is solved analytically, and we demonstrate that its solution can be reconstructed from a simple Langevin equation. At late times, one finds that only the color singlet component of the density matrix survives the quark's propagation through the medium. The off-diagonal elements of the density matrix are suppressed successively in transverse position space and in momentum space, and they become independent of the details of the initial condition. This behavior is reflected in the corresponding von Neumann entropy, whose growth at late time is related to the increase of the classical phase space explored by the high energy quark in its motion through the medium. The interpretation of the Wigner transform as a classical distribution is further supported by the fact that the associated classical entropy coincides at late time with the von Neumann entropy.
We investigate the thermalization process from a glasma-like initial condition in a static box in terms of the Husimi–Wehrl (HW) entropy defined with the Husimi function, a quantum distribution function in a phase space. We calculate the semiclassical time evolution of the HW entropy in Yang–Mills field theory with the phenomenological initial field configuration given by mimicking the McLerran–Venugopalan model in a static box, which has instability triggered by initial field fluctuations. Husimi–Wehrl entropy production implies the thermalization of the system and it reflects the underlying dynamics such as chaoticity and instability. By comparing the production rate with the Kolmogorov–Sinaï rate, we find that the HW entropy production rate is significantly larger than that expected from chaoticity. We also show that the HW entropy is finally saturated when the system reaches a quasi-stationary state. The saturation time of the HW entropy is comparable with that of pressure isotropization, which is around 1 fm/c in the present calculation.
In this paper, we study how quantum fluctuations modify the quantum evolution of an initially classical field theory. We consider a scalar ϕ 4 theory coupled to an external source as a toy model for the color glass condensate description of the early time dynamics of heavy-ion collisions. We demonstrate that quantum fluctuations considerably modify the time evolution driving the system to evolve in accordance with ideal hydrodynamics. We attempt to understand the mechanism behind this relaxation to ideal hydrodynamics by using modified initial spectra and studying the particle content of the theory.