Triple-gluon scatterings and early thermalization Original Research Article

Triple-gluon scattering processes in gluon matter initially created in Au–Au collisions at RHIC energies become important. The three-gluon scatterings are calculated in perturbative QCD and give rise to a new term in a transport equation for gluon distribution. A numerical solution of the transport equation demonstrates gluon momentum isotropy achieved at a time of the order of 0.65 fm/c and can thus be fitted to a thermal distribution with fugacity of 0.065 and temperature of 0.75 GeV. Triple-gluon scatterings lead to a short thermalization time of gluon matter.