Dynamical evolution of thin shells composed by different kinds of degrees of
freedom collapsing within asymptotically AdS spaces is explored with the aim of
investigating models of holographic thermalization of strongly coupled systems.
From the quantum field theory point of view this corresponds to considering
different thermal quenches. We carry out a general study of the thermalization
time scale using different parameters and space-time dimensions, by calculating
renormalized space-like geodesic lengths and rectangular minimal area surfaces
as extended probes of thermalization, which are dual to two-point functions and
rectangular Wilson loops. Different kinds of degrees of freedom in the shell
are described by their corresponding equations of state. We consider a scalar
field, as well as relativistic matter, a pressureless massive fluid and
conformal matter, which can be compared with the collapse of an AdS-Vaidya thin
shell. Remarkably, for conformal matter, the thermalization time scale becomes
much larger than the others. Furthermore, in each case we also investigate
models where the cosmological constants of the inner and outer regions
separated by the shell are different. We found that in this case only a scalar
field shell collapses, and that the thermalization time scale is also much
larger than the AdS-Vaidya case.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figures. V2: published versio