# Asymmetric shockwave collisions in $\text{AdS}_{5}$

## TL;DR

This paper investigates asymmetric shockwave collisions in a supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory using holography, demonstrating that post-collision hydrodynamics can be effectively modeled based on symmetric collision results, simplifying complex non-central collision simulations.

## Contribution

It extends previous symmetric shock collision studies to asymmetric cases, providing a universal hydrodynamic description applicable to non-planar, non-central collisions without complex holographic computations.

## Key findings

- Hydrodynamic flow in asymmetric collisions closely matches symmetric case results.
- The study enables modeling of complex collisions without detailed holographic simulations.
- Provides computational methods for shockwave collision simulations using pseudo-spectral techniques.

## Abstract

Collisions of asymmetric planar shocks in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory are studied via their dual gravitational formulation in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime. The post-collision hydrodynamic flow is found to be very well described by appropriate means of the results of symmetric shock collisions. This study extends, to asymmetric collisions, previous work of Chesler, Kilbertus, and van der Schee examining the special case of symmetric collisions. Given the universal description of hydrodynamic flow produced by asymmetric planar collisions one can model, quantitatively, non-planar, non-central collisions of highly Lorentz contracted projectiles without the need for computing, holographically, collisions of finite size projectiles with very large aspect ratios. This paper also contains a pedagogical description of the computational methods and software used to compute shockwave collisions using pseudo-spectral methods, supplementing the earlier overview of Chesler and Yaffe.