Holographic dilepton production in a thermalizing plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production rate of dileptons in a strongly coupled plasma during thermalization using holographic duality, revealing oscillatory behavior and spectral evolution towards equilibrium.

Contribution

It introduces a holographic model of dilepton production during thermalization, capturing out-of-equilibrium spectral features in a strongly coupled plasma.

Findings

Dilepton spectral function oscillates before thermalization.

Oscillation amplitude decreases as equilibrium is approached.

Quasinormal modes evolve towards their equilibrium spectrum.

Abstract

We determine the out-of-equilibrium production rate of dileptons at rest in strongly coupled N=4 Super Yang-Mills plasma using the AdS/CFT correspondence. Thermalization is achieved via the gravitational collapse of a thin shell of matter in AdS_5 space and the subsequent formation of a black hole, which we describe in a quasistatic approximation. Prior to thermalization, the dilepton spectral function is observed to oscillate as a function of frequency, but the amplitude of the oscillations decreases when thermal equilibrium is approached. At the same time, we follow the flow of the quasinormal spectrum of the corresponding U(1) vector field towards its equilibrium limit.