Emergent equilibrium-like yields from nonequilibrium cascade dynamics

We study nonequilibrium cascades in which fragile bound or coherent structures are formed through intermediate states rather than by direct equilibration. Motivated by light-nuclei production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and by Bose–Einstein condensation in cosmological settings, we analyze such processes within the Schwinger–Keldysh real-time formalism. We show that commonly used rate equations can be understood as a controlled Markovian approximation obtained by integrating out intermediate reservoirs in an underlying multi-component nonequilibrium dynamics. When the finite lifetime of these reservoirs is retained, non-Markovian memory effects naturally appear, leading to delayed and history-dependent formation dynamics. The associated memory time provides a quantitative criterion for the validity of reduced, rate-based descriptions far from equilibrium.