Orbiting strings in AdS black holes and N=4 SYM at finite temperature

TL;DR

This paper investigates orbiting strings in AdS black hole backgrounds, interpreting them as high-spin states in finite temperature N=4 SYM, analyzing their energy, spin, and thermodynamic properties including dissociation in a gluon plasma.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of orbiting strings in AdS black holes as duals to high-spin states at finite temperature, extending previous pure AdS analyses.

Findings

Orbiting strings correspond to large spin states in the dual CFT.

Thermodynamic analysis shows glueball dissociation in the plasma.

Properties of rotating AdS black holes influence string stability.

Abstract

Following Gubser, Klebanov and Polyakov [hep-th/0204051], we study strings in AdS black hole backgrounds. With respect to the pure AdS case, rotating strings are replaced by orbiting strings. We interpret these orbiting strings as CFT states of large spin similar to glueballs propagating through a gluon plasma. The energy and the spin of the orbiting string configurations are associated with the energy and the spin of states in the dual finite temperature N=4 SYM theory. We analyse in particular the limiting cases of short and long strings. Moreover, we perform a thermodynamic study of the angular momentum transfer from the glueball to the plasma by considering string orbits around rotating AdS black holes. We find that standard expectations, such as the complete thermal dissociation of the glueball, are borne out after subtle properties of rotating AdS black holes are taken into account.