Our proposed research project is on the borderline of two, until now mostly unrelated larger fields of interest: on the one hand the study of nonlinear dynamics in general, and that of extended systems in particular, and on the other hand, the study of highly excited or thermal quantum fields. Here we review existing connections of the main investigators to groups working on some of these related areas.
The principal investigators have established their working relationship in 1990. They have published several research articles on topics in the field of the proposed project and recently co-authored a book on ``Chaos and Gauge Field Theory'' together with S. Matinyan, the Director of Yerevan Physics Institute [22].
The Center of Nonlinear Science, located at Duke University, encompasses a variety of growing research interests in the chaotic behavior of spatially extended systems. Frequent communication with researchers working there (R.Behringer, H.Greenside) are established and will be of mutual benefit in the future [23,24].
There are excellent computing possibilities thanks to the support from the North Carolina Supercomputing Center. The high quality computer facilities there have already been used successfully for classical field dynamics simulations in the recent past [14]-[20].
Good working relationship has been established recently with members of the Theoretical Physics Department of the Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem (ELTE) in Budapest, too (T. Tél, G.Györgyi). One of us (T.S.B.) has given a series of special lectures for students about ``Chaotic Dynamics in Heavy Ion Physics'' and several seminar talks there in 1994. The research experience of the Budapest School on chaos is a unique resource when struggling with methodological or interpretational, conceptual or technical problems.
Our proposed particular research has equally deep roots in the research interest in quark -- gluon plasma and other field theoretical problems related to high energy density. Regular communication of ideas with members of the experimental groups preparing measurements on relativistic heavy ion collisions are of essential importance by strengthening our efforts in the investigation of -- eventually experimentally detectable -- consequences of the chaotic behavior of elementary fields.
Such relationships exist to two experimental groups. B.Müller is regularly invited as a consultant to group meetings of the PHENIX and STAR collaborations of the RHIC experiment being prepared at Brookhaven National Laboratory. T.S.Biró, and the Nuclear Theory Group at the MTA RMKI he is a member of, maintains communications with the group of experimentalists at the same institute who are working on a self-contained contribution to the CERN NA49 heavy ion experiment (spokesman Gy.Vesztergombi).
The investigators of the proposed research project were and are participating in contemporary theoretical research efforts in describing the essential physical processes involved in these heavy ion experiments. The Nuclear Theory Group at RMKI led by J.Zimányi has recently developed a phenomenological model (ALCOR) for the description of the Pb+Pb reaction measured at CERN SPS [25]. As a support of this model with a microscopical calculation of the early phase in heavy ion collisions, which may be decisive for the possible formation of quark -- gluon plasma, our proposed research project on the chaotic behavior of elementary fields would complete the spectrum of different theoretical viewpoints on the central physical process.
Similarly, earlier experiences of the researchers participating in the proposed project on dynamical description of the subhadronic (parton) physics will help to relate the expected results to the assumptions and results of the partondynamics [26]-[30]. Viewed as short wavelength and long wavelength approximations to QCD these two approaches complement each other.