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Inhomogeneous holographic thermalization

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

The sudden injection of energy in a strongly coupled conformal field theory and its subsequent thermalization can be holographically modeled by a shell falling into anti-de Sitter space and forming a black brane. For a homogeneous shell, Bhattacharyya and Minwalla were able to study this process analytically using a weak field approximation. Motivated by event-by-event fluctuations in heavy ion collisions, we include inhomogeneities in this model, obtaining analytic results in a long wavelength expansion. In the early-time window in which our approximations can be trusted, the resulting evolution matches well with that of a simple free streaming model. Near the end of this time window, we find that the stress tensor approaches that of second-order viscous hydrodynamics. We comment on possible lessons for heavy ion phenomenology.
Journal: Journal of High Energy Physics
ISSN: 1126-6708
Issue: 10
Volume: 2013
Pages: 1-52
Publication year:2013
Keywords:Gauge-gravity correspondence, Holography and quark-gluon plasmas
  • ORCID: /0000-0002-0805-0403/work/69122136
  • Scopus Id: 84892638092