Coupling constant corrections in a holographic model of heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We initiate a holographic study of coupling-dependent heavy ion collisions by analysing for the first time the effects of leading-order, inverse coupling constant corrections. In the dual description, this amounts to colliding gravitational shock waves in a theory with curvature-squared terms. We find that at intermediate coupling, nuclei experience less stopping and have more energy deposited near the lightcone. When the decreased coupling results in an 80% larger shear viscosity, the time at which hydrodynamics becomes a good description of the plasma created from high energy collisions increases by 25%. The hydrodynamic phase of the evolution starts with a wider rapidity profile and smaller entropy.

Comments: V2: 6 pages, 5 figures. Second-order coupling constant corrections added. Version appeared in PRL