Meson widths from string worldsheet instantons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that worldsheet instantons enable open strings outside an AdS black hole to tunnel into it, leading to non-perturbative meson width contributions in holographic quark-gluon plasma, with implications for heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel non-perturbative mechanism via worldsheet instantons affecting meson widths in holographic models, impacting the understanding of strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma.

Findings

Meson width receives non-perturbative contributions from worldsheet instantons.

Meson width increases quadratically with momentum at high momentum.

Implications for phase structure of Yang-Mills theory in classical gravity limit.

Abstract

We show that open strings living on a D-brane which lies outside an AdS black hole can tunnel into the black hole through worldsheet instantons. These instantons have a simple interpretation in terms of thermal quarks in the dual Yang-Mills (YM) theory. As an application we calculate the width of a meson in a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma which is described holographically as a massless mode on a D7 brane in AdS_5 \times S_5. While the width of the meson is zero to all orders in the 1/\sqrt{\lambda} expansion with \lambda the 't Hooft coupling, it receives non-perturbative contributions in 1/\sqrt{\lambda} from worldsheet instantons. We find that the width increases quadratically with momentum at large momentum and comment on potential phenomenological implications of this enhancement for heavy ion collisions. We also comment on how this non-perturbative effect has important consequences for the phase structure of the YM theory obtained in the classical gravity limit.