On the collision of two shock waves in AdS(5)

Mar, 2008
12 pages
Published in:
  • JHEP 08 (2008) 027
e-Print:
Report number:
  • INT-PUB-08-06,
  • MIT-CTP-3939,
  • YITP-08-18

Citations per year

2008201220162020202405101520
Abstract: (arXiv)
We consider two ultrarelativistic shock waves propagating and colliding in five-dimensional Anti-de-Sitter spacetime. By transforming to Rosen coordinates, we are able to find the form of the metric shortly after the collision. Using holographic renormalization, we calculate the energy-momentum tensor on the boundary of AdS space for early times after the collision. Via the gauge-gravity duality, this gives some insights on bulk dynamics of systems created by high energy scattering in strongly coupled gauge theories. We find that Bjorken boost-invariance is explicitely violated at early times and we obtain an estimate for the thermalization time in this simple system.
Note:
  • 15 pages, 1 figure; v2: clarifications on boost-invariance and appendix added; v3: minor modifications, references added, matches published version
  • gauge field theory: SU(N)
  • supersymmetry: 4
  • space-time: anti-de Sitter
  • dimension: 5
  • Einstein equation: solution
  • tensor: energy-momentum
  • holography
  • renormalization
  • shock waves
  • scattering