Thermalization and Bose-Einstein Condensation in Overpopulated Glasma

Understand

We report recent progress on understanding the thermalization of the quark-gluon plasma during the early stage in a heavy ion collision.

• The initially high overpopulation in the far-from-equilibrium gluonic matter ("Glasma") is shown to play a crucial role.
• The strongly interacting nature (and thus fast evolution) naturally arises as an {\em emergent property} of this pre-equilibrium matter where the intrinsic coupling is weak but the highly occupied gluon states coherently amplify the scattering.
• A possible transient Bose-Einstein Condensate is argued to form dynamically on a rather general ground.