Initial condition for quark-gluon plasma evolution

We recently proposed an approach to high-energy nuclear scattering, which treats the initial stage of heavy-ion collisions in a sophisticated way. We are able to calculate macroscopic quantities like energy density and velocity flow at the end of this initial stage, after the two nuclei having penetrated each other. In other words, we provide the initial conditions for a macroscopic treatment of the second stage of the collision. We address in particular the question of how to incorporate the soft component properly. We find almost perfect 'Bjorken scaling': the rapidity coincides with the space-time rapidity, whereas the transverse flow is practically zero. The distribution of the energy density in the transverse plane shows typically a very 'bumpy' structure