Non-perturbative quark production and transport in the evolving glasma: the WAGASHI event generator

Abstract

We study non-perturbative quark-antiquark pair production and the subsequent quark dynamics in the earliest glasma stage of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. For that, we develop a new model, WAGASHI (Wong-precessing Anisotropic Glasma And ScHwinger-produced Initial-conditions), which combines classical Yang-Mills glasma evolution, Wong-equation transport, and Schwinger pair production on an event-by-event basis. We find that a sizeable number of quarks, comparable to the final hadron yields, are produced already during the glasma stage and subsequently undergo substantial momentum broadening and spin randomization, suggesting a significant contribution toward the early equilibration of the quark-gluon plasma. We also determine the event-by-event distributions of baryon number, electric charge, strangeness, and spin polarization in Pb-Pb and O-O collisions at LHC energies, finding particularly large fluctuations in the smaller O-O system. These results provide dynamical initial conditions for the subsequent hydrodynamic evolution of the quark-gluon plasma.