Heavy Quarks in Strongly Coupled Non-Conformal Plasmas with Anisotropy

Abstract

We analysis physical observables of heavy quarks in gravity models describing strongly coupled non-conformal plasmas with anisotropy via the gauge/gravity duality. The focus lies on the binding energy of static quark-antiquark $(q\bar q$-)pairs, the maximum distance (screening distance) of a bound $q\bar q$-pair and the drag force on uniformly moving quarks in the hot plasma. In order to discover universal behavior in the observables, the computations are worked out in a two parameter deformation of pure gravity in $AdS_5$ spacetime with a black brane which is assumed to be dual to a respective two parameter deformation of $\mathcal{N}$=\,4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory at temperature $T$. The deformation is designed to break isotropy and conformal symmetry and is a solution to equations of motion of a gravity action.