Prethermalization and the first 1 fm/c of a heavy ion collision

The phenomenon of prethermalization and the subsequent steps of thermalization are analyzed in the framework of the chiral quark model. We solve the quantum equations of motion of the field theory derived from the 2PI effective action and study the time scales of equilibration. We find that already after a 0.6 fm/c long period of time some equilibrium features appear, even though the system is still far from equilibrium. This can be an important ingredient for understanding the success of ideal hydrodynamic description. (author)