Early Thermalization at RHIC

Abstract

Triple-gluon elastic scatterings are briefly reviewed since the scatterings explain the early thermalization puzzle in Au-Au collisions at RHIC energies. A numerical solution of the transport equation with the triple-gluon elastic scatterings demonstrates gluon momentum isotropy achieved at a time of the order of 0.65 fm/c. Triple-gluon scatterings lead to a short thermalization time of gluon matter.

Comments: LaTex, 8 pages and 4 figures, talk presented in the Weihai workshop on relativistic heavy ion collisions