Wolfgang Cassing - Transport Theories for Strongly-Interacting Systems: Applications to Heavy-Ion Collisions

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This book provides an overview on transport theories for readers from different fields although the actual applications and especially the relativistic off-shell transport theory are of particular interest for physicists working in the field of relativistic strong-interaction physics such as relativistic or ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions or the evolution of the early universe. Instead of giving hand-waving arguments for transport models in various fields, the focus here is on a thorough derivation of the transport equations and a careful analysis of the approximations employed. In order to keep the arguments and extensions in line, a multitude of Appendices is added that partly recall elements of elementary lectures on quantum mechanics or present examples for specific models. As for basic knowledge, the reader should be familiar with quantum mechanics and its principles as well as some basic concepts of the quantum many-body physics and field theory. Furthermore, the reader should not be afraid of sometimes lengthy equations and derivations that are mandatory for a stringent mathematical derivation and allow to point out relevant approximations. The detailed formulations allow for independent numerical studies that provide a space-time movie of nonequilibrium dynamics of weakly and strongly interacting many-body systems. Exercises are incorporated throughout the chapters and are expected to deepen an understanding of the material presented.

The contents of this work have been developed with my PhD students and collaborators over a period of about 35 years and has led to some deeper insight into the physics of strongly interacting systems in and out of equilibrium, especially in comparison to experimental data from worldwide accelerator facilities. I hope the reader will enjoy reading and find helpful sections for his or her own research.

This book results from the collaboration with many friends and collaborators throughout roughly 35 years of common research. These are Wolfgang Bauer, Tamas Biro, Bernhard Blttel, Elena Bratkovskaya, Wolfgang Ehehalt, Carsten Greiner, Jochen Geiss, Jrn Huser, Sascha Juchem, Volker Koch, Volodya Konchakovski, Andreas Lang, Olena Linnyk, Tomoyuki Maruyama, Pierre Moreau, Ulrich Mosel, Koji Niita, Vitalii Ozvenchuk, Alessia Palmese, Andreas Peter, Alfred Pfitzner, Pradip Sahu, Eduard Seifert, Taesoo Song, Thorsten Steinert, Stefan Teis, Markus Thoma, Viacheslav Toneev, Vadim Voronyuk, Shun-Yin Wang, Klaus Weber and Gyuri Wolf. Furthermore, I am indebted to Elena Bratkovskaya and Olga Soloveva for valuable suggestions throughout the preparation of this work and in particular to Elena Bratkovskaya for her help in preparing the illustrations and figures.