Probes on D3-D7 Quark-Gluon Plasmas

TL;DR

This paper investigates the effects of massless dynamical quarks on a quark-gluon plasma using holographic duality, revealing how flavor degrees of freedom influence meson stability, screening, and drag force.

Contribution

It models quenched flavors in a holographic plasma with backreacted D7 branes, providing qualitative insights into flavor effects on plasma properties in the Veneziano limit.

Findings

Meson melting temperature is increased by flavor effects.

Screening length is reduced with dynamical flavors.

Drag force on probes is enhanced due to flavor contributions.

Abstract

We study the holographic dual model of quenched flavors immersed in a quark-gluon plasma with massless dynamical quarks in the Veneziano limit. This is modeled by embedding a probe D7 brane in a background where the backreaction of massless D7 branes has been taken into account. The background, and hence the effects, are perturbative in the Veneziano parameter N_f/N_c, therefore giving small shifts of all magnitudes like the constituent mass, the quark condensate, and several transport coefficients. We provide qualitative results for the effect of flavor degrees of freedom on the probes. For example, the meson melting temperature is enhanced, while the screening length is diminished. The drag force is also enhanced.