title: Collective deceleration of ultrarelativistic nuclei and creation of quark-gluon plasma.
abstract: We propose a unified space-time picture of baryon stopping and quark-gluon plasma creation in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is assumed that the highly Lorentz contracted nuclei are decelerated by the coherent color field which is formed between them after they pass through each other. This process continues until the field is neutralized by the Schwinger mechanism. Conservation of energy and momentum allow us to calculate the energy losses of the nuclear slabs and the initial energy density of the quark-gluon plasma.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
authors.forename: I N
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Mishustin
authors.forename: J I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Kapusta