Non-spherical collapse in AdS and Early Thermalization in RHIC

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that non-spherical shells in anti-de Sitter space rapidly form black holes, providing a gravity dual explanation for early thermalization in quark-gluon plasma observed in RHIC experiments.

Contribution

It reveals a novel mechanism of rapid black hole formation in AdS space and links it to early thermalization in strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma via gravity duals.

Findings

Non-spherical shells form black holes in one dynamical time in AdS.

Radial motion period is amplitude independent despite non-linearity.

Attractive interactions preserve qualitative collapse behavior; repulsive interactions cause particles to halt at finite radius.

Abstract

In the flat space, non-spherical shells collapse to give globular cluster after many oscillations. We show that in anti de sitter space, they form black holes in one dynamical time. We propose that this is the mechanism of early thermalization in strong quark-gluon plasma in gravity dual. This is traced back to the a remarkable property of AdS : the period in radial motion is amplitude independent in spite of the NON-linearity of the equation of motion. We investigate the interaction effect numerically and observe the same qualitative behavior for the attractive forces. For repulsive interactions, particles halt at a small but finite radius for long time due to the specific structure of the bulk AdS propagator. It helps hair creation in the AdS black hole.