1,154 research outputs found
Energy loss and thermalization of heavy quarks in a strongly-coupled plasma
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence, we compute the medium-induced energy loss
of a decelerating heavy quark moving through a strongly-coupled supersymmetric
Yang Mills plasma. In the regime where the deceleration is small, a
perturbative calculation is possible and we obtain the first two corrections to
the energy-loss rate of a heavy quark with constant velocity. The
thermalization of the heavy quark is also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, Proceedings of the 21st International Conference
on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus Nucleus Collisions (QM09), Knoxville, USA,
March 30-April 4 200
pQCD vs. AdS/CFT Tested by Heavy Quark Energy Loss
We predict the charm and bottom quark nuclear modification factors using
weakly coupled pQCD and strongly coupled AdS/CFT drag methods. The
log(pT/M_Q)/pT dependence of pQCD loss and the momentum independence of drag
loss lead to different momentum dependencies for the R_{AA} predictions. This
difference is enhanced by examining a new experimental observable, the double
ratio of charm to bottom nuclear modification factors,
R^{cb}=R^c_{AA}/R^b_{AA}. At LHC the weakly coupled theory predicts R^{cb} goes
to 1; whereas the strongly coupled theory predicts R^{cb} .2 independent of pT.
At RHIC the differences are less dramatic, as the production spectra are
harder, but the drag formula is applicable to higher momenta, due to the lower
temperature.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Proceedings for the International Conference on
Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM 2007), Levoca, Slovakia, 24-29 June 200
Can the effective string see higher partial waves?
The semi-classical cross-sections for arbitrary partial waves of ordinary
scalars to fall into certain five-dimensional black holes have a form that
seems capable of explanation in terms of the effective string model. The
kinematics of these processes is analyzed in detail on the effective string and
is shown to reproduce the correct functional form of the semi-classical
cross-sections. But it is necessary to choose a peculiar value of the effective
string tension to obtain the correct scaling properties. Furthermore, the
assumptions of locality and statistics combine to forbid the effective string
from absorbing more than a finite number of partial waves. The relation of this
limitation to cosmic censorship is discussed.Comment: 19 pages, uses harvmac, version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Exact Absorption Probability in the Extremal Six-Dimensional Dyonic String Background
We show that the minimally coupled massless scalar wave equation in the
background of an six-dimensional extremal dyonic string (or D1-D5 brane
intersection) is exactly solvable, in terms of Mathieu functions. Using this
fact, we calculate absorption probabilities for these scalar waves, and present
the explicit results for the first few low energy corrections to the
leading-order expressions. For a specific tuning of the dyonic charges one can
reach a domain where the low energy absorption probability goes to zero with
inverse powers of the logarithm of the energy. This is a dividing domain
between the regime where the low energy absorption probability approaches zero
with positive powers of energy and the regime where the probability is an
oscillatory function of the logarithm of the energy. By the conjectured AdS/CFT
correspondence, these results shed novel light on the strongly coupled
two-dimensional field theory away from its infrared conformally invariant fixed
point (the strongly coupled ``non-critical'' string).Comment: Latex (3 times), 23 page
Evaluation Of Glueball Masses From Supergravity
In the framework of the conjectured duality relation between large gauge
theory and supergravity the spectra of masses in large gauge theory can be
determined by solving certain eigenvalue problems in supergravity. In this
paper we study the eigenmass problem given by Witten as a possible
approximation for masses in QCD without supersymmetry. We place a particular
emphasis on the treatment of the horizon and related boundary conditions. We
construct exact expressions for the analytic expansions of the wave functions
both at the horizon and at infinity and show that requiring smoothness at the
horizon and normalizability gives a well defined eigenvalue problem. We show
for example that there are no smooth solutions with vanishing derivative at the
horizon. The mass eigenvalues up to corresponding to smooth
normalizable wave functions are presented. We comment on the relation of our
work with the results found in a recent paper by Cs\'aki et al.,
hep-th/9806021, which addresses the same problem.Comment: 20 pages,Latex,3 figs,psfig.tex, added refs., minor change
The Effectiveness of D-branes in the Description of Near-Extremal Black Holes
It is known that weak coupling calculations of absorption or emission by
slightly non-extremal D-brane configurations are in exact agreement with
semiclassical results for the black holes they describe at strong couplings. We
investigate one open string loop corrections to processes involving single and
parallel D-branes and show that a class of relevant terms vanish, indicating
that these processes are not renormalized. Our results have implications for
five dimensional black holes and extremal 3-branes.Comment: harvmac,22 pages. Additional comments about significance of loop
corrections, minor revisions and added reference
Spectral Functions in Holographic Renormalization Group Flows
The spectrum of two-point functions in a holographic renormalization group
flow from an ultraviolet (UV) to an infrared (IR) conformal fixed point is
necessarily continuous. For a toy model, the spectral function does not only
show the expected UV and IR behaviours, but other interesting features such as
sharp peaks and oscillations in the UV. The spectral functions for the
SU(3)xU(1) flow in AdS_4/CFT_3 and the SU(2)xU(1) flow in AdS_5/CFT_4 are
calculated numerically. They exhibit a simple cross-over behaviour and
reproduce the conformal dimensions of the dual operators in the UV and IR
conformal phases.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures v2: added referene
Evolution of near extremal black holes
Near extreme black holes can lose their charge and decay by the emission of
massive BPS charged particles. We calculate the greybody factors for low energy
charged and neutral scalar emission from four and five dimensional near
extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black holes. We use the corresponding emission
rates to obtain ratios of the rates of loss of excess energy by charged and
neutral emission, which are moduli independent, depending only on the integral
charges and the horizon potentials. We consider scattering experiments, finding
that evolution towards a state in which the integral charges are equal is
favoured, but neutral emission will dominate the decay back to extremality
except when one charge is much greater than the others. The implications of our
results for the agreement between black hole and D-brane emission rates and for
the information loss puzzle are then discussed.Comment: 25 pages, RevTe
Universal Low-Energy Dynamics for Rotating Black Holes
Fundamental string theory has been used to show that low energy excitations
of certain black holes are described by a two dimensional conformal field
theory. This picture has been found to be extremely robust. In this paper it is
argued that many essential features of the low energy effective theory can be
inferred directly from a semiclassical analysis of the general Kerr-Newman
solution of supersymmetric four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell gravity, without
using string theory. We consider the absorption and emission of scalars with
orbital angular momentum, which provide a sensitive probe of the black hole. We
find that the semiclassical emission rates -including superradiant emission and
greybody factors - for such scalars agree in striking detail with those
computed in the effective conformal field theory, in both four and five
dimensions. Also the value of the quantum mass gap to the lowest-lying
excitation of a charge- black hole, in Planck units, can be
derived without knowledge of fundamental string theory.Comment: 24 pages, no figures. Typos corrected, some comments adde
Comments on Black Holes in String Theory
A very brief review is given of some of the developments leading to our
current understanding of black holes in string theory. This is followed by a
discussion of two possible misconceptions in this subject - one involving the
stability of small black holes and the other involving scale radius duality.
Finally, I describe some recent results concerning quasinormal modes of black
holes in anti de Sitter spacetime, and their implications for strongly coupled
conformal field theories (in various dimensions).Comment: 13 pages. Talk given at Strings '99, Potsdam, German
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