Holographic Lessons for Quark Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent holographic studies of heavy quark behavior in strongly-coupled conformal field theories, focusing on energy loss, radiation, and quark-antiquark dynamics at zero and finite temperature.

Contribution

It provides an overview of how gauge/gravity duality models quark dynamics, highlighting new insights into energy loss and screening in thermal plasmas.

Findings

Energy loss and radiation damping are effectively described by string worldsheet dynamics.

Quark-antiquark evolution after pair creation is characterized by screening effects.

Early-time energy loss mechanisms are elucidated in holographic models.

Abstract

We give a brief overview of recent results obtained through the gauge/gravity correspondence, concerning the propagation of a heavy quark in strongly-coupled conformal field theories (such as N=4 super-Yang-Mills), both at zero and finite temperature. In the vacuum, we discuss energy loss, radiation damping, signal propagation and radiation-induced fluctuations. In the presence of a thermal plasma, our emphasis is on early-time energy loss, screening and quark-antiquark evolution after pair creation. Throughout, quark dynamics is seen to be efficiently encapsulated in the usual string worldsheet dynamics.