Strongly coupled $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills plasma on the Coulomb branch I: Thermodynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermodynamics of strongly coupled $ ext{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory on the Coulomb branch using holography, revealing phase transitions and confining potentials at finite temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a new ensemble fixing temperature and scalar condensate, computes the equation of state, and analyzes phase structure and confinement in the Coulomb branch at strong coupling.

Findings

Identifies a confining Cornell potential at zero temperature.

Discovers two black hole branches with different thermodynamic behaviors.

Finds a second-order phase transition between black hole phases.

Abstract

We study $\mathcal{N} = 4$ super Yang-Mills theory on the Coulomb branch (cSYM) in the strong coupling limit by using the AdS/CFT correspondence. The dual geometry is the rotating black 3-brane Type IIB supergravity solution with a single non-zero rotation parameter $r_{0}$ which sets a fixed mass scale corresponding to the scalar condensate $<\mathcal{O}>\,\,\sim r_{0}^4$ in the Coulomb branch. We introduce a new ensemble where $T$ and $<\mathcal{O}>$ are held fixed, i.e., the free energy $F(T,<\mathcal{O}>)$ is a function of $T$ and $<\mathcal{O}>$. We compute the equation of state (EoS) of $\mathcal{N} = 4$ cSYM at finite $T$, as well as the heavy quark-antiquark potential and the quantized mass spectrums of the scalar and spin-2 glueballs at $T=0$. By computing the Wilson loop (minimal surface) at $T=0$, we determine the heavy quark-antiquark potential $V(L)$ to be the Cornell potential, which is confining for large separation $L$. At $T\neq 0$, we find two black hole branches: the large black hole and small black hole branches. For the large black hole branch, that has positive specific heat, we find qualitatively similar EoS to that of pure Yang-Mills theory on the lattice. For the small black hole branch, that has negative specific heat, we find an EoS where the entropy and energy densities decrease with $T$. We also find a second-order phase transition between the large and small black hole branches with critical temperature $T_c=T_{min}$.