Anisotropic momentum broadening in the 2+1D Glasma: analytic weak field approximation and lattice simulations

Abstract: In heavy ion collisions, transverse momentum broadening quantifies the modification of a hard probe due to interactions with the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). We calculate momentum broadening in the Glasma, which is the highly non-isotropic precursor stage of the QGP right after the collision. We show that the Glasma leads to anisotropic momentum broadening: high energy partons accumulate more momentum along the beam axis than transverse to it. The physical origin of anisotropic broadening can be traced back to differences in the shapes of chromo-electric and chromo-magnetic flux tubes in the Glasma. We provide semi-analytic results for momentum broadening in the dilute Glasma and numerical results from real-time lattice simulations of the non-perturbative dense Glasma.