Conversion of color field into qanti q matter in the central region of high-energy heavy ion collisions

We investigate the process of conversion of the color field spanned between two extremely relativistic nuclei into the quark-antiquark matter. The mechanism of conversion is assumed to be tunnelling of qanti q pairs from the vacuum in a strong chromoelectric field. The interaction between the emerging quark and antiquark is explicitly taken into account. We find that the transverse momentum of the produced quarks (antiquarks) determines the main characteristic parameters of the conversion process, in particular the initial energy and the formation time. (orig.)