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Comparing the drag force on heavy quarks in N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory and QCD

Steven S. Gubser
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Abstract

Computations of the drag force on a heavy quark moving through a thermal state of strongly coupled N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory have appeared recently in hep-th/0605158, hep-ph/0605199, and hep-th/0605182. I compare the strength of this effect between N=4 gauge theory and QCD, using the static force between external quarks to normalize the 't Hooft coupling. Comparing N=4 and QCD at fixed energy density then leads to a relaxation time of roughly 2 fm/c for charm quarks moving through a quark-gluon plasma at T=250 MeV. This estimate should be regarded as preliminary because of the difficulties of comparing two such different theories.

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Steven S. Gubser. 2006-11-28. Comparing the drag force on heavy quarks in N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory and QCD. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.76.126003

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