Collective Modes and Linear Landau Damping in a Quark-Gluon Plasma

Abstract

The semiclassical kinetic approach of Boltzmann-Vlasov model along with the Yang-Mills equation in a covariant guage is used to study Quark-Gluon Plasma. The longitudinal and transverse color collective modes and Landau damping is investigated for extreme and for strongly relativistic cases. The relevant integrals for the polarization tensor are evaluated and the dispersion relations are obtained for both longitudinal and transverse modes. The regime of the QGP wherein the thermal speed of the plasma species equals the velocity of light, the linear Landau damping for the isotropic medium vanishes; while for a slight departure from the extreme relativistic case (finite mass of the plasma species), the damping term survives.