The nonequilibrium evolution of heavy-ion collisions is studied in the limit of weak coupling at very high energy employing lattice simulations of the classical Yang-Mills equations. Performing the largest classical-statistical simulations to date, we find that the dynamics of the longitudinally expanding plasma becomes independent of the details of the initial conditions. After a transient regime dominated by plasma instabilities and free streaming, the subsequent space-time evolution is governed by a nonthermal fixed point, where the system exhibits the self-similar dynamics characteristic of wave turbulence. This allows us to distinguish between different kinetic scenarios in the classical regime. Within the accuracy of our simulations, the scaling behavior found is consistent with the “bottom-up” thermalization scenario [R. Baier, A. H. Mueller, D. Schiff, and D. T. Son, Phys. Lett. B 502, 51 (2001)].

• Received 31 March 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.89.074011