Rapid Thermalization by Baryon Injection in Gauge/Gravity Duality

TL;DR

This paper uses gauge/gravity duality to model rapid thermalization in strongly coupled gauge theories caused by baryon injection, providing estimates consistent with heavy ion collision experiments and discussing universality across different theories.

Contribution

It introduces a holographic model for baryon-induced thermalization and estimates rapid thermalization times relevant to RHIC and LHC experiments.

Findings

Thermalization time-scale t_{th} < 1 fm/c

Horizon formation on probe branes models thermalization

Results suggest universality across gauge theories

Abstract

Using the AdS/CFT correspondence for strongly coupled gauge theories, we calculate thermalization of mesons caused by a time-dependent change of a baryon number chemical potential. On the gravity side, the thermalization corresponds to a horizon formation on the probe flavor brane in the AdS throat. Since heavy ion collisions are locally approximated by a sudden change of the baryon number chemical potential, we discuss implication of our results to RHIC and LHC experiments, to find a rough estimate of rather rapid thermalization time-scale t_{th} < 1 [fm/c]. We also discuss universality of our analysis against varying gauge theories.