A Gravity Dual of RHIC Collisions

Abstract

In the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence we discuss the gravity dual of a heavy-ion-like collision in a variant of ${\cal N}=4$ SYM. We provide a gravity dual picture of the entire process using a model where the scattering process creates initially a holographic shower in bulk AdS. The subsequent gravitational fall leads to a moving black hole that is gravity dual to the expanding and cooling heavy-ion fireball. The front of the fireball cools at the rate of $1/\tau$, while the core cools as $1/\sqrt{\tau}$ from a cosmological-like argument. The cooling is faster than Bjorken cooling. The fireball freezes when the dual black hole background is replaced by a confining background through the Hawking-Page transition.