Heavy-quark energy loss and thermalization in a strongly coupled SYM plasma

TL;DR

This paper uses the AdS/CFT correspondence to calculate the energy loss and thermalization time of a heavy quark moving through a strongly coupled SYM plasma, providing insights into quark behavior in such environments.

Contribution

It presents a novel calculation of heavy-quark energy loss and thermalization time in a strongly coupled plasma using perturbative methods in AdS/CFT, up to second order.

Findings

Computed energy loss rate up to second order in perturbation.

Estimated thermalization time of heavy quarks in strongly coupled plasma.

Clarified physical interpretation of correction terms.

Abstract

Using the AdS/CFT correspondence, we compute the radiative energy loss of a slowly decelerating heavy quark with mass M moving through a supersymmetric Yang Mills (SYM) plasma at temperature T at large t'Hooft coupling \lambda. The calculation is carried out in terms of perturbation in \sqrt{\lambda}T/M, and the rate of the energy loss is computed up to second order. We explain the physical meaning of each correction and estimate the thermalization time of a heavy quark moving in a strongly-coupled plasma.