Kolmogorov wave turbulence plays an important role for the thermalization process following plasma instabilities in nonabelian gauge theories. We show that classical-statistical simulations in SU(2) gauge theory indicate a Kolmogorov scaling exponent
known from scalar models. In the range of validity of resummed perturbation theory this result is shown to agree with analytical estimates. We study the effect of classical-statistical versus quantum corrections and demonstrate that the latter lead to the absence of turbulence in the far ultraviolet.
We compute nonequilibrium dynamics of plasma instabilities in classical-statistical lattice gauge theory in 3+1 dimensions. The simulations are done for the first time for the SU(3) gauge group relevant for quantum chromodynamics. We find a qualitati
vely similar behavior as compared to earlier investigations in SU(2) gauge theory. The characteristic growth rates are about 25 % lower for given energy density, such that the isotropization process is slower. Measured in units of the characteristic screening mass, the primary growth rate is independent of the number of colors.
We investigate ultraviolet fixed points in the real-time evolution of non-Abelian gauge fields. Classical-statistical lattice simulations reveal equal-time correlation functions with a spectral index 3/2. Analytical understanding of this result is ac
hieved by employing a 2PI- loop expansion for the quantum theory.
We study the phase structure of a 4D complex scalar field theory with a potential V(Phi) = | Lambda^3 / Phi - Lambda Phi |^2 at zero and at finite temperature. The model is analyzed by mean field and Monte Carlo methods. At zero temperature the theor
y falls in the universality class of the 4D Ising model when varying Lambda. The situation is less clear-cut for variations w.r.t. Lambda at large temperatures and variations w.r.t. temperature at a given value of Lambda. We observe temperature independence of the mass of the first excitation.
We compute nonequilibrium dynamics for classical-statistical SU(2) pure gauge theory on a lattice. We consider anisotropic initial conditions with high occupation numbers in the transverse plane on a characteristic scale ~ Q_s. This is used to invest
igate the very early stages of the thermalization process in the context of heavy-ion collisions. We find Weibel or primary instabilities with growth rates similar to those obtained from previous treatments employing anisotropic distributions of hard modes (particles) in the weak coupling limit. We observe secondary growth rates for higher-momentum modes reaching substantially larger values and we analyse them in terms of resummed loop diagrams beyond the hard-loop approximation. We find that a coarse grained pressure isotropizes bottom-up with a characteristic inverse rate of gamma^{-1} ~ 1 - 2 fm/c for coarse graining momentum scales of p < 1 GeV choosing an initial energy density for RHIC of epsilon = 30 GeV/fm^3. The nonequilibrium spatial Wilson loop is found to exhibit an area law and to become isotropic on a similar time scale.
