Cavitation effects on the confinement/deconfinement transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates how cavitation influences the confinement/deconfinement phase transition in a strongly coupled gauge theory plasma using holography, highlighting potential relevance near the QCD critical point.

Contribution

It applies holographic methods to study cavitation effects on phase transitions in a strongly coupled plasma, providing insights into their possible significance in QCD.

Findings

Cavitation causes less than 5% shift in deconfinement temperature in the model.

Cavitation effects are more pronounced near the critical point.

Potential importance of cavitation in QCD phase transition vicinity.

Abstract

Cavitation is a process where the viscous terms in a relativistic fluid result in reducing the effective pressure, thus facilitating the nucleation of bubbles of a stable phase. The effect is particularly pronounced in the vicinity of a (weak) first-order phase transition. We use the holographic correspondence to study cavitation in a strongly coupled planar cascading gauge theory plasma close to the confinement/deconfinement phase transition. While in this particular model the shift of the deconfinement temperature due to cavitation does not exceed 5%, we speculate that cavitation might be important near the QCD critical point.