Shock wave collisions in AdS5: approximate numerical solutions

Abstract

We numerically study the evolution of a boost-invariant N=4 SYM medium using AdS/CFT. We consider a toy model for the collision of gravitational shock waves, finding that the energy density first increases, reaches a maximum and then starts to decrease, matching hydrodynamics for late times. For the initial conditions we consider, the hydrodynamic scale governing the late time behaviour is to very good approximation determined by the area of the black hole horizon at initial times. Our results provide a toy model for the early time evolution of the bulk system in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC.