Momentum broadening of a fast parton in a perturbative quark-gluon plasma

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2009-12-17

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American Physical Society

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The average transverse momentum transfer per unit path length to a fast parton scattering elastically in a perturbative quark-gluon plasma is related to the radiative energy loss of the parton. We first calculate the momentum transfer coefficient qˆ in terms of a classical Langevin problem and then define it quantum mechanically through a scattering matrix element. After treating the well-known case of a quark-gluon plasma in equilibrium, we consider an off-equilibrium unstable plasma. As a specific example, we treat the two-stream plasma with unstable modes of longitudinal chromoelectric field. In the presence of the instabilities, qˆ is shown to exponentially grow in time.

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Abhijit Majumder, Berndt Müller and Stanisław Mrówczyński, "Momentum broadening of a fast parton in a perturbative quark-gluon plasma," Physical Review D 80, no. 12 (2009), doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.80.125020