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arXiv · 1205.6873

Thermalization from gauge/gravity duality: Evolution of singularities in unequal time correlators

Johanna Erdmenger·Shu Lin
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Abstract

We consider a gauge/gravity dual model of thermalization which consists of a collapsing thin matter shell in asymptotically Anti-de Sitter space. A central aspect of our model is to consider a shell moving at finite velocity as determined by its equation of motion, rather than a quasi-static approximation as considered previously in the literature. By applying a divergence matching method, we obtain the evolution of singularities in the retarded unequal time correlator $G^R(t,t')$, which probes different stages of the thermalization. We find that the number of singularities decreases from a finite number to zero as the gauge theory thermalizes. This may be interpreted as a sign of decoherence. Moreover, in a second part of the paper, we show explicitly that the thermal correlator is characterized by the existence of singularities in the complex time plane. By studying a quasi-static state, we show the singularities at real times originate from contributions of normal modes. We also investigate the possibility of obtaining complex singularities from contributions of quasi-normal modes.

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Johanna Erdmenger, Shu Lin. 2012-05-31. Thermalization from gauge/gravity duality: Evolution of singularities in unequal time correlators. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep10(2012)028

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