LIFETIME OF A DISORIENTED CHIRAL CONDENSATE

The lifetime of a disoriented chiral condensate formed within a heat b ath of pions is calculated assuming temperatures and densities attaina ble at present and future heavy-ion colliders. A generalization of the reduction formula to include coherent states allows us to derive a fo rmula for the decay rate. We predict the half-life to be between 4 and 7 fm/c, depending on the assumed pion density. We also calculate the lifetime in the presence of higher resonances and baryons, which short ens the lifetime by at most 20%. [S0031-9007(98)07558-9].