Inhomogeneity of a rotating quark-gluon plasma from holography

Abstract

Rotation affects the transition temperature between confined (hadronic) and deconfined (quark-gluon plasma) phases of the strongly interacting matter produced in non-central heavy ion collisions. A holographic description of this effect was presented recently, considering an AdS black hole with cylindrical symmetry in rotation. Here we extend this approach in order to analyse the more realistic case of strongly interacting matter that, rather than living in a cylindrical shell, spreads over a region around the rotational axis. In this case, the confined and deconfined phases may coexist. The holographic description of the plasma behaviour under rotation is shown to be consistent with the concept of local temperature for rotating frames developed by Tolman and Ehrenfest.