Session H3: Invited Session: Initial State Fluctuations and Transport in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Measurement of initial state fluctuations at RHIC

The low viscosity of the Quark Gluon Plasma phase created in heavy ion collisions at RHIC makes it possible to resolve structure in the initial conditions through correlation and power spectra measurements. These measurements provide an ideal method to learn about the structure of the initial state and the transport properties of the subsequent expansion phase. I'll review measurements related to the fluctuations in the initial conditions of heavy ion collisions at RHIC.   

Measurement of Initial State Fluctuations at LHC

Detailed understanding of the initial conditions of the hot and dense QCD system created in heavy-ion collisions is a prerequisite for determining its transport coefficients and describing the subsequent time evolution. For QCD matter created at RHIC and at LHC energies these transport coefficients are difficult to calculate theoretically. However, recently it was realized that a measurement of the full spectrum of anisotropic flow fluctuations will allow for a detailed determination of one of the transport coefficients, the shear viscosity over entropy ratio, and provide a strong constraints on the various models of the initial conditions. In this talk I will give an overview of the anisotropic flow fluctuation measurements at the LHC.   

Theory of Initial State Fluctuations, Thermalization and CGC

We describe how the dynamics of strongly correlated gluons at high parton densities lead to a natural understanding of di-hadron correlations in high-multiplicity p+p and p+Pb collisions. The physics of which is intimately related to quantum fluctuations responsible for the decoherence of the strongly occupied initial classical fields generated in heavy-ion collisions. We outline a program to compute the effect of real time evolution of unstable quantum modes on the bulk dynamics of the system and demonstrate within a scalar $\phi^4$ theory that an equation of state and hydrodynamic behavior is obtained.