The stress tensor of a quark moving through N=4 thermal plasma

TL;DR

This paper derives the stress tensor of a quark moving in a thermal plasma using holographic duality, revealing directional structures in Fourier space and potential implications for heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It develops linear equations for graviton perturbations caused by a trailing string in AdS_5-Schwarzschild, enabling calculation of the boundary stress tensor.

Findings

Stress tensor components show directional structures in Fourier space.

Results may be relevant to understanding relativistic heavy ion collisions.

Abstract

We develop the linear equations that describe graviton perturbations of AdS_5-Schwarzschild generated by a string trailing behind an external quark moving with constant velocity. Solving these equations allows us to evaluate the stress tensor in the boundary gauge theory. Components of the stress tensor exhibit directional structures in Fourier space at both large and small momentum. We comment on the possible relevance of our results to relativistic heavy ion collisions.