Heavy Quarks in Strongly Coupled Non-Conformal Plasmas with Anisotropy

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heavy quarks behave in strongly coupled, anisotropic, non-conformal plasmas using gauge/gravity duality, revealing universal features of quark binding and energy loss.

Contribution

It introduces a two-parameter gravity model deforming AdS$_5$ to study heavy quark observables in anisotropic, non-conformal plasmas, highlighting universal behaviors.

Findings

Universal behavior in quark-antiquark binding energy

Maximum screening distance depends on anisotropy

Drag force varies with quark velocity and anisotropy

Abstract

We analysis physical observables of heavy quarks in gravity models describing strongly coupled non-conformal plasmas with anisotropy via the gauge/gravity duality. The focus lies on the binding energy of static quark-antiquark $(q\bar q$-)pairs, the maximum distance (screening distance) of a bound $q\bar q$-pair and the drag force on uniformly moving quarks in the hot plasma. In order to discover universal behavior in the observables, the computations are worked out in a two parameter deformation of pure gravity in $AdS_5$ spacetime with a black brane which is assumed to be dual to a respective two parameter deformation of $\mathcal{N}$=\,4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory at temperature $T$. The deformation is designed to break isotropy and conformal symmetry and is a solution to equations of motion of a gravity action.