Self-Screened Parton Cascades

The high density of scattered partons predicted in nuclear collisions at very high energy makes color screening effects significant. We explain how these screening mechanisms may suppress nonperturbative, soft QCD processes, permitting a consistent calculation of quark-gluon plasma formation within the framework of perturbative QCD. We present results of a model calculation of these effects including predictions for the initial thermalized state for heavy nuclei colliding at RHIC and LHC.