Particle theory

Abstract:

The transport properties of certain strongly coupled thermal gauge theories can be determined from their effective description in terms of gravity or superstring theory duals. Here we provide a short summary of the results for the shear and bulk viscosity, charge diffusion constant, and the speed of sound in supersymmetric strongly interacting plasmas. We also outline a general algorithm for computing transport coefficients in any gravity dual. The algorithm relates the transport coefficients to the coefficients in the quasinormal spectrum of five-dimensional black holes in asymptotically anti de Sitter space.

Abstract:

We construct M theory on the orbifold C2/ZN by coupling 11-dimensional supergravity to a seven-dimensional Yang-Mills theory located on the orbifold fixed plane. It is shown that the resulting action is supersymmetric to leading nontrivial order in the 11-dimensional Newton constant. This action provides the starting point for a reduction of M theory on G2 spaces with codimension four singularities. © 2006 The American Physical Society.