Baryon Dissociation in a Strongly Coupled Plasma

TL;DR

This paper uses dual string theory to analyze baryon dissociation in a strongly coupled plasma, revealing robust screening length behavior and providing insights into baryonic configurations before and after quark dissociation.

Contribution

It introduces a model for circular baryons in a strongly coupled plasma and examines their dissociation, extending previous screening length results to baryonic configurations.

Findings

Screening length formula L_s T ~ (1-v^2)^{1/4} is robust for circular baryons.

Comparison of dissociated configurations highlights energetic differences.

Model captures key features of baryon dissociation in strongly coupled plasma.

Abstract

Using the dual string theory, we study a circular baryonic configuration in a wind of strongly coupled N=4 Yang-Mills plasma blowing in the plane of the baryon, before and after a quark has dissociated from it. A simple enough model that captures many interesting features is when there are four quarks in the baryon. As a step towards phenomenology, we compare representative dissociated configurations, and make some comments about their energetics and other properties. Related results that we find include the observation that the screening length formula L_s T ~ (1-v^2)^{1/4} obtained previously for other color singlet configurations, is robust for circular baryons as well.