Holographic spectral functions and diffusion constants for fundamental matter

TL;DR

This paper uses holographic duality to analyze spectral functions and diffusion constants for fundamental matter in a large-N super-Yang-Mills theory, revealing insights into meson melting and transport properties at high temperature.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed holographic computation of spectral functions and diffusion constants for fundamental matter in the high-temperature phase of the theory.

Findings

Spectral functions show meson melting at high temperature.

Diffusion constants for flavor currents are computed.

The phase transition is characterized by meson dissociation.

Abstract

The holographic dual of large-Nc super-Yang-Mills coupled to a small number of flavours of fundamental matter, Nf << Nc, is described by Nf probe D7-branes in the gravitational background of Nc black D3-branes. This system undergoes a first order phase transition characterised by the `melting' of the mesons. We study the high temperature phase in which the D7-branes extend through the black hole horizon. In this phase, we compute the spectral function for vector, scalar and pseudoscalar modes on the D7-brane probe. We also compute the diffusion constant for the flavour currents.