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Degree

PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : Physics, 2009.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the adiabatic dynamics of heavy mesons consisting of one light quark and one heavy quark at non-zero temperature by using a conjectured equivalence between a string theory in an anti-de Sitter gravitational background with a black hole and a Yang-Mills theory at non-zero temperature. We do this by analyzing the string configurations equivalent to the mesons. We show that for certain mesons, there is a critical velocity where an adiabatically forced meson will become “dressed,” i.e., it will cease to gain momentum by increasing its speed and will instead increase its mass and slow down. The string associated with such a dressed meson assumes “drooped” configuration in which the string hangs down towards the black hole. Then at a subsequent lower velocity, the frequency of the first excited mode of the drooping string vanishes and the string becomes unstable. We present evidence that, at this instability, the two quarks of the meson dissociate and start to feel a drag force from the color degrees of freedom in the Yang-Mills thermal bath. We also discover new heavy-light stationary string configurations as well as new “glueball” string solutions.

Subject Headings

Particle physics; Physics

Keywords

AdS/CFT; holography; String Theory; quark-gluon plasma; mesons; drag coefficient; heavy-light mesons; Gauge-Gravity duality; meson spectrum; Drooped string; Drooping string; Dressed meson; kinematics, finite temperature

Committee / Advisors

Philip Argyres, PhD (Committee Chair)
Kay Kinoshita, PhD (Committee Member)
Frank Pinski, PhD (Committee Member)
L.C.R. Wijewardhana, PhD (Committee Member)

Pages

95p.

Document number: ucin1250538856
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1250538856

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