Holography for Heavy Quarks and Mesons at Finite Chemical Potential

TL;DR

This paper explores the behavior of heavy quarks in strongly coupled plasmas at finite chemical potential using holographic duality, revealing universal features and providing insights relevant for quark-gluon plasma studies.

Contribution

It introduces a holographic analysis of heavy quark properties at finite chemical potential, including screening, free energy, and energy loss, highlighting universal behaviors across models.

Findings

Universal features in quark-antiquark screening and energy loss.

Applicability to quark-gluon plasma with finite baryon density.

Insights into heavy quark dynamics in strongly coupled plasmas.

Abstract

We study the properties of heavy quarks as probes of strongly coupled plasmas with and without chemical potential by means of the gauge/gravity (AdS/CFT) duality. We compute the screening distance of a heavy quark-antiquark pair, its free energy, and the running coupling in large classes of non-conformal models arising as deformations of pure AdS space. We further investigate the energy loss of a heavy quark moving on a circular orbit as an example of an accelerated motion. These observables exhibit universal features independent of the deformation, pointing to strong-coupling universality. Our results should be relevant for processes involving heavy quarks and their bound states in the quark-gluon plasma, including the case of finite net baryon density.