D3-D7 Quark-Gluon Plasmas

TL;DR

This paper develops a string theory dual for finite temperature quark-gluon plasmas with fundamental matter, analyzing thermodynamics, conformality departure, and jet quenching, including effects of massive flavors.

Contribution

It provides an analytic backreacted solution for D3-D7 systems with flavors at finite temperature, extending the holographic model of quark-gluon plasmas with new flavor mass inclusion.

Findings

Flavor backreaction affects thermodynamics and conformality.

Fundamental matter enhances jet quenching effects.

Generalization to D3-D7 systems on Calabi-Yau cones.

Abstract

We present the string dual to finite temperature SU(Nc) N=4 SYM coupled to massless fundamental matter introduced by Nf D7 branes, with Abelian flavor symmetry. The analytic solution includes the backreaction of the flavors up to second order in the parameter that weighs the internal flavor loops, epsilon_h=(lambda_h Nf)/(8 pi^2 Nc), lambda_h being the 't Hooft coupling at the temperature of the dual Quark-Gluon Plasma. We study the thermodynamics of the system and its departure from conformality, which is a second order effect. We then analyze the energy loss of partons moving through the plasma, finding that the fundamental degrees of freedom enhance the jet quenching. The whole setup is generalized to D3-D7 systems with D3-branes placed at the tip of a generic singular Calabi-Yau cone over a five-dimensional Sasaki-Einstein manifold. We finally provide the equations for the inclusion of massive flavors in the N=4 SYM plasma.