---
abstract: 'Starting from kinetic theory, we obtain a nonlinear dissipative formalism describing the nonequilibrium evolution of scalar colored particles coupled selfconsistently to nonabelian classical gauge fields. The link between the one-particle distribution function of the kinetic description and the variables of the effective theory is determined by extremizing the entropy production. This method does not rely on the usual gradient expansion in fluid dynamic variables, and therefore the resulting effective theory can handle situations where these gradients (and hence the momentum-space anisotropies) are expected to be large. The formalism presented here, being computationally less demanding than kinetic theory, may be useful as a simplified model of the dynamics of color fields during the early stages of heavy ion collisions and in phenomena related to parton energy loss.'
author:
- 'J. Peralta-Ramos'
- 'E. Calzetta'
title: Effective dynamics of a nonabelian plasma out of equilibrium
---

Introduction
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The results of numerous experiments on ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions carried out at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) clearly point to the conclusion that a hot, dense and opaque nuclear medium is created in such events [@RHIC-disc1; @RHIC-disc2; @RHIC-disc3; @RHIC-disc4; @RHIC-disc5; @RHIC-disc6]. By now, the 