High energy QCD scattering, the shape of gravity on an IR brane, and the Froissart bound

Abstract

High-energy scattering in non-conformal gauge theories is investigated using the AdS/CFT dual string/gravity theory. It is argued that strong-gravity processes, such as black hole formation, play an important role in the dual dynamics. Further information about this dynamics is found by performing a linearized analysis of gravity for a mass near an infrared brane; this gives the far field approximation to black hole or other strong-gravity effects, and in particular allows us to estimate their shape. From this shape, one can infer a total scattering cross-section that grows with center of mass energy as ln^2 E, saturating the Froissart bound.

Comments: 27 pages, 1 fig, harvmac. v2: references added, typos corrected v3: typo corrected