Drag and jet quenching of heavy quarks in a strongly coupled N=2* plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heavy quarks lose energy and broaden their momentum in a strongly coupled N=2* plasma using holographic methods, revealing effects of conformal symmetry breaking on quark dynamics.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of drag force, jet quenching, and momentum broadening in N=2* plasma, highlighting the impact of conformal invariance breaking on these phenomena.

Findings

Both drag and jet quenching increase with departure from conformality.

Transverse and longitudinal momentum broadening factors differ due to relativistic effects.

Breaking conformal invariance leads to longitudinal momentum broadening, affecting jet distribution understanding.

Abstract

The drag of a heavy quark and the jet quenching parameter are studied in the strongly coupled N=2* plasma using the AdS/CFT correspondence. Both increase in units of the spatial string tension as the theory departs from conformal invariance. The description of heavy quark dynamics using a Langevin equation is also considered. It is found that the difference between the velocity dependent factors of the transverse and longitudinal momentum broadening of the quark admit an interpretation in terms of relativistic effects, so the distribution is spherical in the quark rest frame. When conformal invariance is broken there is a broadening of the longitudinal momentum distribution. This effect may be useful in understanding the jet distribution observed in experiments.