The Heavy Quark Potential as a Function of Shear Viscosity at Strong Coupling

TL;DR

This paper calculates how the heavy-quark potential at finite temperature varies with shear viscosity in a strongly coupled conformal field theory, revealing smaller corrections than perturbative QCD predictions for small bound states.

Contribution

It provides the first determination of finite temperature corrections to the heavy-quark potential as a function of shear viscosity in a strongly coupled holographic model.

Findings

Corrections are smaller than perturbative QCD predictions.

Temperature and viscosity dependence of quarkonium binding energies are characterized.

Highlights the need for models breaking conformal invariance for more realistic results.

Abstract

We determine finite temperature corrections to the heavy-quark (static) potential as a function of the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio in a strongly coupled, large-$N_c$ conformal field theory dual to five-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We find that these corrections are even smaller than those predicted by perturbative QCD at distances relevant for small bound states in a deconfined plasma. Obtaining the dominant temperature and viscosity dependence of quarkonium binding energies will require a theory where conformal invariance is broken in such a way that the free energy associated with a single heavy quark is not just a pure entropy contribution.