Exploring nonlocal observables in shock wave collisions

Abstract

We study the time evolution of 2-point functions and entanglement entropy in strongly anisotropic, inhomogeneous and time-dependent N=4 super Yang-Mills theory in the large N and large 't Hooft coupling limit using AdS/CFT. On the gravity side this amounts to calculating the length of geodesics and area of extremal surfaces in the dynamical background of two colliding gravitational shockwaves, which we do numerically. We discriminate between three classes of initial conditions corresponding to wide, intermediate and narrow shocks, and show that they exhibit different phenomenology with respect to the nonlocal observables that we determine. Our results permit to use (holographic) entanglement entropy as an order parameter to distinguish between the two phases of the cross-over from the transparency to the full-stopping scenario in dynamical Yang-Mills plasma formation, which is frequently used as a toy model for heavy ion collisions. The time evolution of entanglement entropy allows to discern four regimes: highly efficient initial growth of entanglement, linear growth, (post) collisional drama and late time (polynomial) fall off. Surprisingly, we found that 2-point functions can be sensitive to the geometry inside the black hole apparent horizon, while we did not find such cases for the entanglement entropy.

28 pp, 9 figs; v2: updated references, changed color bars in Figure 2 and Figure 6

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• Simulation of Black Hole Collisions in Asymptotically AdS Spacetimes
• Gravitational collisions and the quark-gluon plasma
• A semi-holographic model for heavy-ion collisions
• Non-equilibrium scalar two point functions in AdS/CFT
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Cited by in corpus (18)

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• Holography, Hydrodynamization and Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Correlations far from equilibrium in charged strongly coupled fluids subjected to a strong magnetic field
• Holographic constraints on Bjorken hydrodynamics at finite coupling
• Asymmetric shockwave collisions in ${\text{AdS}}_5$
• Time-dependence of the holographic spectral function: Diverse routes to thermalisation
• Entropy production far from equilibrium in a chiral charged plasma in the presence of external electromagnetic fields
• Saturation of the Quantum Null Energy Condition in Far-From-Equilibrium Systems
• Non-equilibrium steady state formation in 3+1 dimensions
• Colliding localized, lumpy holographic shocks with a granular nuclear structure
• Holographic Signatures of Resolved Cosmological Singularities II: Numerical Investigations
• Far-from-equilibrium initial conditions probed by a nonlocal observable
• Collision of localized shocks in AdS${}_5$ as a series expansion in transverse gradients
• Numerical Relativity, Holography and the Quantum Null Energy Condition
• Equilibration of a strongly interacting plasma: holographic analysis of local and nonlocal probes