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The gluonic field of a heavy quark in conformal field theories at strong coupling

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Abstract

We determine the gluonic field configuration sourced by a heavy quark undergoing arbitrary motion in \( \mathcal{N} = 4 \) super-Yang-Mills at strong coupling and large number of colors. More specifically, we compute the expectation value of the operator Tr[F 2 + …] in the presence of such a quark, by means of the AdS/CFT correspondence. Our results for this observable show that signals propagate without temporal broadening, just as was found for the expectation value of the energy density in recent work by Hatta et al. We attempt to shed some additional light on the origin of this feature, and propose a different interpretation for its physical significance. As an application of our general results, we examine (Tr[F 2 + …])when the quark undergoes oscillatory motion, uniform circular motion, and uniform acceleration. Via the AdS/CFT correspondence, all of our results are pertinent to any conformal field theory in 3 + 1 dimensions with a dual gravity formulation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament de Física Fonamental and Institut de Ciències del Cosmos, Universitat de Barcelona, Marti i Franquès 1, E-08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Mariano Chernicoff

  2. Departamento de Física de Altas Energías, Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 70-543, México D.F., 04510, México

    Alberto Güijosa

  3. Theory Group, Department of Physics and Texas Cosmology Center, University of Texas, 1 University Station C1608, Austin, TX, 78712, U.S.A.

    Juan F. Pedraza

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  1. Mariano Chernicoff
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  2. Alberto Güijosa
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  3. Juan F. Pedraza
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Correspondence to Alberto Güijosa.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1106.4059

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Chernicoff, M., Güijosa, A. & Pedraza, J.F. The gluonic field of a heavy quark in conformal field theories at strong coupling. J. High Energ. Phys. 2011, 41 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2011)041

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