40 research outputs found
Baryons and String Creation from the Fivebrane Worldvolume Action
We construct BPS-exact solutions of the worldvolume Born-Infeld plus WZW
action of a D5-brane in the background of N D3-branes. The non-trivial
background metric and RR five-form field strength play a crucial role in the
solution. When a D5-brane is dragged across a stack of N D3-branes a bundle of
N fundamental strings joining the two types of branes is created, as in the
Hanany-Witten effect. Our solutions give a detailed description of this bundle
in terms of a D5-brane wrapped on a sphere. We discuss extensions of these
solutions which have an interpretation in terms of gauge theory multi-quark
states via the AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, 5 eps figures; v2: added reference which had been
inadvertently omitte
A prototype for dS/CFT
We consider dS_2/CFT_1 where the asymptotic symmetry group of the de Sitter
spacetime contains the Virasoro algebra. We construct representations of the
Virasoro algebra realized in the Fock space of a massive scalar field in de
Sitter, built as excitations of the Euclidean vacuum state. These
representations are unitary, without highest weight, and have vanishing central
charge. They provide a prototype for a new class of conformal field theories
dual to de Sitter backgrounds in string theory. The mapping of operators in the
CFT to bulk quantities is described in detail. We comment on the extension to
dS_3/CFT_2.Comment: 17 pages, revtex
Baryons and Flux Tubes in Confining Gauge Theories from Brane Actions
We study baryon configurations in large N non-supersymmetric SU(N) gauge
theories, applying the AdS/CFT correspondence. Using the D5-brane worldvolume
theory in the near-horizon geometry of non-extremal D3-branes, we find
embeddings which describe baryonic states in three-dimensional QCD. In
particular, we construct solutions corresponding to a baryon made of N quarks,
and study what happens when some fraction of the total number of quarks
are bodily moved to a large spatial separation from the others. The individual
clumps of quarks are represented by Born-Infeld string tubes obtained from a
D5-brane whose spatial section has topology . They are connected
by a confining color flux tube, described by a portion of the fivebrane that
runs very close and parallel to the horizon. We find that this flux tube has a
tension with a nontrivial -dependence (not previously obtained by other
methods). A similar picture is presented for the four-dimensional case.Comment: LaTeX, 20 pages, 6 eps figures; v2: added reference, corrected
numerical error in Eqs. (13) and (23
Drag Force in a Charged N=4 SYM Plasma
Following recent developments, we employ the AdS/CFT correspondence to
determine the drag force exerted on an external quark that moves through an N=4
super-Yang-Mills plasma with a non-zero R-charge density (or, equivalently, a
non-zero chemical potential). We find that the drag force is larger than in the
case where the plasma is neutral, but the dependence on the charge is
non-monotonic.Comment: 16 pages, 1 eps figure; v2: references added, typos fixed; v3: more
general ansatz, new nontrivial solution obtained, nonmonotonicity of the drag
force made explicit in new figure, version to appear in JHE
The Energy of a Moving Quark-Antiquark Pair in an N=4 SYM Plasma
We make use of the AdS/CFT correspondence to determine the energy of an
external quark-antiquark pair that moves through strongly-coupled thermal N=4
super-Yang-Mills plasma, both in the rest frame of the plasma and in the rest
frame of the pair. It is found that the pair feels no drag force, has an energy
that reproduces the expected 1/L (or gamma/L) behavior at small quark-antiquark
separations, and becomes unbound beyond a certain screening length whose
velocity-dependence we determine. We discuss the relation between the
high-velocity limit of our results and the lightlike Wilson loop proposed
recently as a definition of the jet-quenching parameter.Comment: LaTeX 2e, 27 pages, 8 eps figures; v2: added computation of the pair
energy in the plasma rest frame, clarified the comparison with
hep-ph/0607062, corrected typos, added reference
Energy Loss of Gluons, Baryons and k-Quarks in an N=4 SYM Plasma
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.Comment: Latex 2e, 24 pages, 1 eps figure; v2: slightly amplified discussion
on the relation between the drag force and the tension of a spatial Wilson
loop; v3: minor changes, version to appear in JHE
A new twist on dS/CFT
We stress that the dS/CFT correspondence should be formulated using unitary
principal series representations of the de Sitter isometry group/conformal
group, rather than highest-weight representations as originally proposed. These
representations, however, are infinite-dimensional, and so do not account for
the finite gravitational entropy of de Sitter space in a natural way. We then
propose to replace the classical isometry group by a q-deformed version. This
is carried out in detail for two-dimensional de Sitter and we find that the
unitary principal series representations deform to finite-dimensional unitary
representations of the quantum group. We believe this provides a promising
microscopic framework to account for the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of de
Sitter space.Comment: 21 pages, revtex, v2 references adde
On the Beaming of Gluonic Fields at Strong Coupling
We examine the conditions for beaming of the gluonic field sourced by a heavy
quark in strongly-coupled conformal field theories, using the AdS/CFT
correspondence. Previous works have found that, contrary to naive expectations,
it is possible to set up collimated beams of gluonic radiation despite the
strong coupling. We show that, on the gravity side of the correspondence, this
follows directly (for arbitrary quark motion, and independently of any
approximations) from the fact that the string dual to the quark remains
unexpectedly close to the AdS boundary whenever the quark moves
ultra-relativistically. We also work out the validity conditions for a related
approximation scheme that proposed to explain the beaming effect though the
formation of shock waves in the bulk fields emitted by the string. We find that
these conditions are fulfilled in the case of ultra-relativistic uniform
circular motion that motivated the proposal, but unfortunately do not hold for
much more general quark trajectories.Comment: 1+33 pages, 2 figure
The Gluonic Field of a Heavy Quark in Conformal Field Theories at Strong Coupling
We determine the gluonic field configuration sourced by a heavy quark
undergoing arbitrary motion in N=4 super-Yang-Mills at strong coupling and
large number of colors. More specifically, we compute the expectation value of
the operator tr[F^2+...] in the presence of such a quark, by means of the
AdS/CFT correspondence. Our results for this observable show that signals
propagate without temporal broadening, just as was found for the expectation
value of the energy density in recent work by Hatta et al. We attempt to shed
some additional light on the origin of this feature, and propose a different
interpretation for its physical significance. As an application of our general
results, we examine when the quark undergoes oscillatory motion,
uniform circular motion, and uniform acceleration. Via the AdS/CFT
correspondence, all of our results are pertinent to any conformal field theory
in 3+1 dimensions with a dual gravity formulation.Comment: 1+38 pages, 16 eps figures; v2: completed affiliation; v3: corrected
typo, version to appear in JHE
A Tail of a Quark in N=4 SYM
We study the dynamics of a `composite' or `dressed' quark in strongly-coupled
large-N_c N=4 super-Yang-Mills, making use of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We
show that the standard string dynamics nicely captures the physics of the quark
and its surrounding non-Abelian field configuration, making it possible to
derive a relativistic equation of motion that incorporates the effects of
radiation damping. From this equation one can deduce a non-standard dispersion
relation for the composite quark, as well as a Lorentz covariant formula for
its rate of radiation. We explore the consequences of the equation in a few
simple examples.Comment: 26 pages, no figures. v2: added brief clarification on string
boundary conditions, version to be published in JHE