Energy loss of a heavy quark moving through N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma

C. P. Herzog, A. Karch, P. Kovtun, C. Kozcaz, L. G. Yaffe

Published 2006-05-16, updated 2006-08-22Version 3

We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to determine the rate of energy loss of a heavy quark moving through N=4 SU(N_c) supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma at large 't Hooft coupling. Using the dual description of the quark as a classical string ending on a D7-brane, we use a complementary combination of analytic and numerical techniques to determine the friction coefficient as a function of quark mass. Provided strongly coupled N=4 Yang-Mills plasma is a good model for hot, strongly coupled QCD, our results may be relevant for charm and bottom physics at RHIC.