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Quarkonium dissociation by anisotropy

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Abstract

We compute the screening length for quarkonium mesons moving through an anisotropic, strongly coupled \( \mathcal{N} \) = 4 super Yang-Mills plasma by means of its gravity dual. We present the results for arbitrary velocities and orientations of the mesons, as well as for arbitrary values of the anisotropy. The anisotropic screening length can be larger or smaller than the isotropic one, and this depends on whether the comparison is made at equal temperatures or at equal entropy densities. For generic motion we find that: (i) mesons dissociate above a certain critical value of the anisotropy, even at zero temperature; (ii) there is a limiting velocity for mesons in the plasma, even at zero temperature; (iii) in the ultra-relativistic limit the screening length scales as (1 − v 2)ϵ with ϵ = 1/2, in contrast with the isotropic result ϵ = 1/4.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, U.K

    Mariano Chernicoff

  2. Departament de Física Fonamental & Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICC), Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Martí i Franquès 1, E-08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Daniel Fernández & David Mateos

  3. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Passeig Lluís Companys 23, E-08010, Barcelona, Spain

    David Mateos

  4. Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, 05314-970, São Paulo, Brazil

    Diego Trancanelli

  5. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, U.S.A

    Diego Trancanelli

Authors
  1. Mariano Chernicoff
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  2. Daniel Fernández
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  3. David Mateos
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  4. Diego Trancanelli
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Correspondence to Diego Trancanelli.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1208.2672

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Chernicoff, M., Fernández, D., Mateos, D. et al. Quarkonium dissociation by anisotropy. J. High Energ. Phys. 2013, 170 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2013)170

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2013)170

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