Relativistic particle simulation of color diffusion in a SU(2) Yang-Mills plasma

Abstract

We report on a relativistic particle-in-cell simulation study of color transport in a SU(2) Yang-Mills plasma. Simulation results reveal that the color distribution starting from a spiky form spreads to a flat one, through a diffusive process in color space. By numerically performing a "Perrin" like experiment, we explicitly show that the ensemble averaged color fluctuation square (<(ΔI²)>) grows linearly with time indicating that the color vector of a parton executes Brownian motion in color space. Depending on the choice of input parameters, color diffusion time scale can either be shorter or longer than the momentum diffusion time scale. Simulation results for a case where color diffuses faster than momentum are presented.