Radiation of a circulating quark in strongly coupled N=4 super Yang-Mills theory

Abstract

The energy density and angular distribution of power radiated by a quark undergoing circular motion in strongly coupled $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory is computed using gauge/gravity duality. The results are qualitatively similar to that of synchrotron radiation produced by an electron in circular motion in classical electrodynamics: At large velocities the quark emits radiation in a narrow beam along its velocity vector with a characteristic opening angle $\alpha \sim 1/\gamma$ and radial thickness scaling like $\sim 1/{\gamma }^3$.

Comments: 8 pages, 2 figures - Talk presented by D. Nickel at QCD@Work, June 20-23rd, 2010, Martina Franca, Italy