Energy Loss of Gluons, Baryons and k-Quarks in an N=4 SYM Plasma

TL;DR

This paper uses the AdS/CFT correspondence to analyze energy loss of various color sources like gluons, baryons, and k-quarks in a strongly-coupled N=4 SYM plasma, revealing nontrivial k-dependence and corrections.

Contribution

It provides a detailed calculation of energy loss for different color sources, including infinite 1/N corrections and specific force behaviors, extending previous results.

Findings

k-quark bound state force depends nontrivially on k

Baryons experience no drag in the plasma

Heavy gluons experience twice the force of heavy quarks

Abstract

We consider different types of external color sources that move through a strongly-coupled thermal N=4 super-Yang-Mills plasma, and calculate, via the AdS/CFT correspondence, the dissipative force (or equivalently, the rate of energy loss) they experience. A bound state of k quarks in the totally antisymmetric representation is found to feel a force with a nontrivial k-dependence. Our result for k=1 (or k=N-1) agrees at large N with the one obtained recently by Herzog et al. and Gubser, but contains in addition an infinite series of 1/N corrections. The baryon (k=N) is seen to experience no drag. Finally, a heavy gluon is found to be subject to a force which at large N is twice as large as the one experienced by a heavy quark, in accordance with gauge theory expectations.