Adiabatic hydrodynamization with transverse spatial gradients in boost-invariant plasmas

Abstract: The quantitative success of relativistic viscous hydrodynamics in describing the short-lived quark--gluon plasma raises a fundamental question: how does far-from-equilibrium QCD matter approach hydrodynamic behavior so rapidly? Microscopic kinetic-theory studies have related this onset to attractor dynamics, but typically assume transverse homogeneity. We relax this assumption by introducing gradient modes with finite transverse wave number $k$, extending the analysis of arXiv:2212.00820. These couple different spherical harmonics of the momentum distribution, and the resulting dynamics is controlled by the competition among the expansion rate $1/τ$, the collision rate $1/τ_R$, and the gradient scale $k$. At early times, longitudinal expansion suppresses this coupling, and different spherical harmonic sectors follow their homogeneous attractors. We find that, at later times and sufficiently small $k$, this gradient coupling drives the system toward a global attractor manifold spanned by hydrodynamic sound and shear modes, on a timescale $τ_D$ that depends on both the azimuthal harmonic $m$ and $kτ_R$. For sufficiently large $kτ_R$, the spectral gap closes: perturbations retain finite damping rates and therefore equilibrate, but no longer follow an isolated hydrodynamic attractor or admit a reduced description involving only a few hydrodynamic modes.