Thermal spectral functions of strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory

Abstract

We use the gauge-gravity duality conjecture to compute spectral functions of the stress-energy tensor in finite temperature N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in the limit of large Nc and large coupling. The spectral functions exhibit peaks characteristic of hydrodynamic modes at small frequency, and oscillations at intermediate frequency. The non-perturbative spectral functions differ qualitatively from those obtained in perturbation theory. The results may prove useful for lattice studies of transport processes in thermal gauge theories.