Time-dependent heavy-quark potential at finite temperature from gauge-gravity duality

TL;DR

This paper derives a real-time complex potential between heavy quarks in quark-gluon plasma using gauge/gravity duality, revealing rapid approach to equilibrium and significant imaginary parts affecting quarkonium properties.

Contribution

It introduces a method to compute the real-time heavy-quark potential from gauge/gravity duality, including analytic continuation and variational string configurations.

Findings

Rapid potential approach to stationary value at t=1/πT

Imaginary part of potential significant above r=1.72/πT

Potential behavior independent of 't Hooft coupling λ

Abstract

The potential between a heavy quark and an anti-quark inside the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is studied on the basis of the gauge/gravity duality. A real-time complex potential V_{Q\bar{Q}}(t,r) is derived from the Wilson loop with the Euclidean five-dimensional anti-de-Sitter black hole metric. To make the analytic continuation from the imaginary time to the real time, specific variational configurations of the string world sheet in the Euclidean metric are introduced. Rapid approach of V_{Q\bar{Q}}(t,r) to its stationary value is found at the time scale t=1/\pi T independent of the 't Hooft coupling \lambda. Also, the imaginary part of V_{Q\bar{Q}}(\infty,r) is found to be significant above the length scale r=1.72/\pi T independent of \lambda. Implications of these results to the properties of heavy quarkonia in QGP are briefly discussed.