Wilson Loops in the Large N Limit at Finite Temperature

TL;DR

This paper calculates the energy of a quark-antiquark pair in N=4 SYM at finite temperature using supergravity, providing insights into the strong coupling regime at large N.

Contribution

It applies Maldacena's proposal to compute quark-antiquark energy in the supergravity dual of finite temperature N=4 SYM, extending previous zero-temperature analyses.

Findings

Quantifies quark-antiquark potential at finite temperature

Demonstrates the behavior of the potential in the large N limit

Provides a framework for studying thermal effects in gauge/gravity duality

Abstract

Using a proposal of Maldacena we compute in the framework of the supergravity description of N coincident D3 branes the energy of a quark anti-quark pair in the large N limit of U(N) N=4 SYM in four dimensions at finite temperature.