Non-perturbative particle production mechanism in time-dependent strong non-Abelian fields

Abstract

Non‐perturbative production of quark‐antiquarks is investigated in the early stage of heavy‐ion collisions. The time‐dependent study is based on a kinetic description of the fermion‐pair production in strong non‐Abelian fields. We introduce time‐dependent chromo‐electric external field with a pulse‐like time evolution to simulate the overlap of two colliding heavy ions. We have found that the small inverse duration time of the field pulse determines the efficiency of the quark‐pair production. The expected suppression for heavy quark production, as follows from the Schwinger formula for a constant field, is not seen, but an enhanced heavy quark production appears at ultrarelativistic energies. We convert our pulse duration time‐dependent results into collisional energy dependence and introduce energy and flavour‐dependent string tensions, which can be used in string based model calculations at RHIC and LHC energies.