ANOMALY INDUCED DOMAIN FORMATION OF DISORIENTED CHIRAL CONDENSATES - ART. NO. 094011

We discuss the effect of the chiral anomaly as a possible mechanism fo r triggering the formation of domains of disoriented chiral condensate (DCC) in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The anomalous pi(0) --> 2 gamma coupling and the strong, Lorentz contracted electromagnetic fie lds of the heavy ions combine to produce the ''anomaly kick'' to the f ield configuration of the neutral pion field. We implement the effect of the anomaly kick in our numerical simulation of the linear sigma mo del in a schematic way which preserves its characteristic features: th e effect is coherent over a large region of space but is opposite in s ign above and below the ion scattering plane. We demonstrate by detail ed simulations with longitudinal expansion that the DCC domain formati on is dramatically enhanced by the anomaly kick in spite of its small absolute magnitude. We examine the behavior of various physical quanti ties such as pion fields, the axial vector currents, and their correla tion functions. Our results also provide useful insight into the mecha nism and properties of DCC domain formation, in general. Finally, we d iscuss some experimental observables which can signal the anomaly indu ced formation of DCC. [S0556-2821(98)05617-3]