Hadron Masses and Screening from AdS Wilson Loops

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in strongly coupled N=4 SYM, the binding energy of quark pairs is unaffected by coupling strength, leading to string breaking and meson interactions similar to QCD.

Contribution

It reveals that in strongly coupled N=4 SYM, the quark binding energy is coupling-independent, and it models meson interactions and screening effects analogous to QCD.

Findings

Binding energy of heavy-light quarks is coupling-independent.

Light quarks cause string breaking and charge screening.

Neutral mesons interact via pion exchange with estimated masses.

Abstract

We show that in strongly coupled N=4 SYM the binding energy of a heavy and a light quark is independent of the strength of the coupling constant. As a consequence we are able to show that in the presence of light quarks the analog of the QCD string can snap and color charges are screened. The resulting neutral mesons interact with each other only via pion exchange and we estimate the masses