Apparent Thermalization due to Plasma Instabilities in Quark-Gluon Plasma

Hydrodynamical modeling of heavy ion collisions at RHIC suggests that the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) “thermalizes” in a remarkably short time scale, about 0.6 fm/c. We argue that this should be viewed as indicating fast isotropization, but not necessarily complete thermalization, of the non-equilibrium QGP. Non-Abelian plasma instabilities can drive local isotropization of an anisotropic QGP on a time scale which is faster than ordinary perturbative scattering processes. As a result, we argue that theoretical expectations based on weak coupling analysis are not necessarily in conflict with hydrodynamic modeling of the early part of RHIC collisions, provided one recognizes the key role of non-Abelian plasma instabilities.