Equilibration rates in a strongly coupled nonconformal quark-gluon plasma

Abstract

We initiate the study of equilibration rates of strongly coupled quark-gluon plasmas in the absence of conformal symmetry. We primarily consider a supersymmetric mass deformation within $\mathcal{N}=2^{\ast }$ gauge theory and use holography to compute quasinormal modes of a variety of scalar operators, as well as the energy-momentum tensor. In each case, the lowest quasinormal frequency, which provides an approximate upper bound on the thermalization time, is proportional to temperature, up to a pre-factor with only a mild temperature dependence. We find similar behaviour in other holographic plasmas, where the model contains an additional scale beyond the temperature. Hence, our study suggests that the thermalization time is generically set by the temperature, irrespective of any other scales, in strongly coupled gauge theories.

6 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (12)

• Minkowski-space correlators in AdS/CFT correspondence: recipe and applications
• The equation of state in (2+1)-flavor QCD
• Horizon formation and far-from-equilibrium isotropization in supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma
• Bulk viscosity of gauge theory plasma at strong coupling
• Gauge/gravity duality and thermalization of a boost-invariant perfect fluid
• Initial condition for hydrodynamics, partonic free streaming, and the uniform description of soft observables at RHIC
• Shear Modes, Criticality and Extremal Black Holes
• Thermodynamics of the N=2^* strongly coupled plasma
• Nonlocal probes of thermalization in holographic quenches with spectral methods
• Simulation of Black Hole Collisions in Asymptotically AdS Spacetimes
• Gravitational infall in the hard wall model
• Higher dimensional conformal field theories in the Coulomb branch

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Linearized nonequilibrium dynamics in nonconformal plasma
• Critical behavior of non-hydrodynamic quasinormal modes in a strongly coupled plasma
• Holography, Hydrodynamization and Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Holographic entanglement entropy close to crossover/phase transition in strongly coupled systems
• Holographic Quenches in a Confined Phase
• Strong-coupling dynamics and entanglement in de Sitter space
• Singularity development and supersymmetry in holography
• Meson Potential Energy in a Non-Conformal Holographic Model
• Collisions of massive particles, timelike thin shells and formation of black holes in three dimensions
• Hot Big Bang from inflation without the inflaton reheating