Energy loss of a heavy quark moving through N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma

TL;DR

This paper uses the AdS/CFT correspondence to calculate the energy loss rate of a heavy quark in a strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma, providing insights potentially relevant to QCD phenomena at RHIC.

Contribution

It introduces a method combining analytic and numerical techniques to determine the quark's friction coefficient as a function of mass in the dual gravity description.

Findings

Calculated the energy loss rate of heavy quarks in the plasma.

Determined the friction coefficient dependence on quark mass.

Provided results applicable to charm and bottom quark physics at RHIC.

Abstract

We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to determine the rate of energy loss of a heavy quark moving through N=4 SU(N_c) supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma at large 't Hooft coupling. Using the dual description of the quark as a classical string ending on a D7-brane, we use a complementary combination of analytic and numerical techniques to determine the friction coefficient as a function of quark mass. Provided strongly coupled N=4 Yang-Mills plasma is a good model for hot, strongly coupled QCD, our results may be relevant for charm and bottom physics at RHIC.