Linearly polarized gluons and axial charge fluctuations in the glasma

Abstract

We calculate the one- and two-point correlation functions of the energy density and the divergence of the Chern-Simons current in the nonequilibrium glasma state formed in a high-energy nuclear collision. We show that the latter depends on the difference of the total and linearly polarized gluon transverse momentum distributions. Since the divergence of the Chern-Simons current provides the source of axial charge, we infer information about the statistical properties of axial charge production at early times. We further develop a simple phenomenological model to characterize axial charge distributions in terms of distributions of the energy density.