Shock Treatment: Heavy Quark Energy Loss in a Novel AdS/CFT Geometry

TL;DR

This paper explores heavy quark energy loss in a novel AdS/CFT geometry, aiming to differentiate strong coupling models from traditional pQCD approaches in high-energy heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It extends AdS/CFT applications to heavy quark energy loss in shock geometries, providing a new framework to compare with pQCD predictions.

Findings

Calculated string drag in shock metrics for heavy quarks.

Proposed double ratio of charm to bottom nuclear modification factors.

Enhanced understanding of strong coupling effects in quark energy loss.

Abstract

We first note the failures of traditional pQCD techniques as applied to high-pT heavy ion physics and the suggestion of examining the double ratio of charm to bottom nuclear modification factors to generically distinguish between these weak coupling ideas and the strong coupling ideas of AdS/CFT. In order to gain confidence in the use of AdS/CFT (and to increase the likelihood of falsifying it and/or pQCD) we extend its application to heavy quark energy loss in both thermal and nonthermal media by calculating the string drag in a shock metric.