Traces of Thermalization from Transverse Momentum Fluctuations in Nuclear Collisions

Abstract

Scattering of particles produced in Au+Au collisions at RHIC can wrestle the system into a state near local thermal equilibrium. I illustrate how measurements of the centrality dependence of the mean transverse momentum and its fluctuations can exhibit this thermalization.

Comments: 4 pages, 2 eps figures, final version to appear in PRL