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We investigate thermalization processes occurring at different time scales in the Yang-Mills-Higgs system at high temperatures. We determine the largest Lyapunov exponent associated with the gauge fields and verify its relation to the perturbatively calculated damping rate of a static gauge boson. ͓S0556-2821͑97͒03304-3͔

We discuss the results of numerical simulations of colliding wavepackets in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. We investigate their behavior as a function of amplitude and momentum distribution. We find regions in our parameter space in which initial wave packets scatter into final configurations with dramatically different momentum distributions. These results constitute new classical trajectories with multiparticle boundary conditions. We explain their relevance for the calculation of scattering amplitudes in the semiclassical approximation. Finally, we give directions for future work.

We show that a high frequency standing wave in SU(2) gauge theory is unstable against decay into long wavelength modes. This provides a nonperturbative mechanism for energy transfer from initial high momentum modes to final states with low momentum excitations. The Abelian case does not manifest such instability. Our analysis is supported by lattice simulations.