Abstract
We study the production of gravitational waves by a thermalized plasma of \( \mathcal{N} \) =4 Supersymmetric Yang Mills matter. We focus on the large number of colors limit, Nc → ∞, and compute the spectrum of gravitational waves both for infinitely large and infinitesimally small values of the ‘t Hooft coupling constant λ. In the λ → ∞ limit we employ the gauge/gravity duality to compute the emission rate via the analysis of Energy-Momentum tensor thermal correlators. In the λ → 0 limit we employ state-of-the-art perturbative analyses to calculate the complete leading order emission rate. By comparing these extreme limits, we bracket the magnitude of the spectrum induced by this source of gravitational waves. Embedding our results in a cosmological evolution model, we find qualitative and quantitative similarities between the strong coupling spectrum and the extrapolation of the perturbative results up to an intermediate value of the coupling, after an appropriate re-scaling of the effective number of degrees of freedom. We comment on how our results can help better understand the contribution of thermalized matter to the stochastic spectrum of gravitational waves.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
LIGO Scientific and Virgo collaborations, Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (2016) 061102 [arXiv:1602.03837] [INSPIRE].
LIGO Scientific and Virgo collaborations, Tests of general relativity with binary black holes from the second LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalog, Phys. Rev. D 103 (2021) 122002 [arXiv:2010.14529] [INSPIRE].
L. Barack et al., Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap, Class. Quant. Grav. 36 (2019) 143001 [arXiv:1806.05195] [INSPIRE].
N. Aggarwal et al., Challenges and opportunities of gravitational-wave searches at MHz to GHz frequencies, Living Rev. Rel. 24 (2021) 4 [arXiv:2011.12414] [INSPIRE].
C. Caprini and D.G. Figueroa, Cosmological Backgrounds of Gravitational Waves, Class. Quant. Grav. 35 (2018) 163001 [arXiv:1801.04268] [INSPIRE].
S. Weinberg, Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity, John Wiley and Sons (1972) [INSPIRE].
J. Ghiglieri and M. Laine, Gravitational wave background from Standard Model physics: Qualitative features, JCAP 07 (2015) 022 [arXiv:1504.02569] [INSPIRE].
J. Ghiglieri, G. Jackson, M. Laine and Y. Zhu, Gravitational wave background from Standard Model physics: Complete leading order, JHEP 07 (2020) 092 [arXiv:2004.11392] [INSPIRE].
A. Ringwald, J. Schütte-Engel and C. Tamarit, Gravitational Waves as a Big Bang Thermometer, JCAP 03 (2021) 054 [arXiv:2011.04731] [INSPIRE].
J. Ghiglieri, A. Kurkela, M. Strickland and A. Vuorinen, Perturbative Thermal QCD: Formalism and Applications, Phys. Rept. 880 (2020) 1 [arXiv:2002.10188] [INSPIRE].
J. Ghiglieri, J. Hong, A. Kurkela, E. Lu, G.D. Moore and D. Teaney, Next-to-leading order thermal photon production in a weakly coupled quark-gluon plasma, JHEP 05 (2013) 010 [arXiv:1302.5970] [INSPIRE].
G. Cacciapaglia, C. Pica and F. Sannino, Fundamental Composite Dynamics: A Review, Phys. Rept. 877 (2020) 1 [arXiv:2002.04914] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena, The Large N limit of superconformal field theories and supergravity, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 38 (1999) 1113 [hep-th/9711200] [INSPIRE].
O. Aharony, S.S. Gubser, J.M. Maldacena, H. Ooguri and Y. Oz, Large N field theories, string theory and gravity, Phys. Rept. 323 (2000) 183 [hep-th/9905111] [INSPIRE].
E. Witten, Anti-de Sitter space and holography, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2 (1998) 253 [hep-th/9802150] [INSPIRE].
S.S. Gubser, I.R. Klebanov and A.M. Polyakov, Gauge theory correlators from noncritical string theory, Phys. Lett. B 428 (1998) 105 [hep-th/9802109] [INSPIRE].
D.T. Son and A.O. Starinets, Minkowski space correlators in AdS/CFT correspondence: Recipe and applications, JHEP 09 (2002) 042 [hep-th/0205051] [INSPIRE].
P.K. Kovtun and A.O. Starinets, Quasinormal modes and holography, Phys. Rev. D 72 (2005) 086009 [hep-th/0506184] [INSPIRE].
M. Laine and A. Vuorinen, Basics of Thermal Field Theory, Lecture Notes in Physics 925, Springer (2016) [DOI] [arXiv:1701.01554] [INSPIRE].
D. Teaney, Finite temperature spectral densities of momentum and R-charge correlators in N = 4 Yang-Mills theory, Phys. Rev. D 74 (2006) 045025 [hep-ph/0602044] [INSPIRE].
P. Kovtun and A. Starinets, Thermal spectral functions of strongly coupled N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 131601 [hep-th/0602059] [INSPIRE].
P.M. Morse and H. Feshbach, Methods of theoretical physics, Am. J. Phys. 22 (1954) 410.
C.G. Callan Jr., S.R. Coleman and R. Jackiw, A New improved energy-momentum tensor, Annals Phys. 59 (1970) 42 [INSPIRE].
B. Fiol and J. Martínez-Montoya, On scalar radiation, JHEP 03 (2020) 087 [arXiv:1907.08161] [INSPIRE].
D. Yamada and L.G. Yaffe, Phase diagram of N = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory with R-symmetry chemical potentials, JHEP 09 (2006) 027 [hep-th/0602074] [INSPIRE].
Q. Du, M. Strickland, U. Tantary and B.-W. Zhang, Two-loop HTL-resummed thermodynamics for \( \mathcal{N} \) = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, JHEP 09 (2020) 038 [arXiv:2006.02617] [INSPIRE].
S.S. Gubser, I.R. Klebanov and A.W. Peet, Entropy and temperature of black 3-branes, Phys. Rev. D 54 (1996) 3915 [hep-th/9602135] [INSPIRE].
K. Saikawa and S. Shirai, Primordial gravitational waves, precisely: The role of thermodynamics in the Standard Model, JCAP 05 (2018) 035 [arXiv:1803.01038] [INSPIRE].
J. Casalderrey-Solana, H. Liu, D. Mateos, K. Rajagopal and U.A. Wiedemann, Gauge/String Duality, Hot QCD and Heavy Ion Collisions, Cambridge University Press (2014) [DOI] [arXiv:1101.0618] [INSPIRE].
S. Caron-Huot, P. Kovtun, G.D. Moore, A. Starinets and L.G. Yaffe, Photon and dilepton production in supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma, JHEP 12 (2006) 015 [hep-th/0607237] [INSPIRE].
Y. Bea et al., Spinodal Gravitational Waves, arXiv:2112.15478 [INSPIRE].
Y. Bea, J. Casalderrey-Solana, T. Giannakopoulos, D. Mateos, M. Sanchez-Garitaonandia and M. Zilhão, Bubble wall velocity from holography, Phys. Rev. D 104 (2021) L121903 [arXiv:2104.05708] [INSPIRE].
F.R. Ares, M. Hindmarsh, C. Hoyos and N. Jokela, Gravitational waves from a holographic phase transition, JHEP 04 (2021) 100 [arXiv:2011.12878] [INSPIRE].
F.R. Ares, O. Henriksson, M. Hindmarsh, C. Hoyos and N. Jokela, Effective actions and bubble nucleation from holography, Phys. Rev. D 105 (2022) 066020 [arXiv:2109.13784] [INSPIRE].
F.R. Ares, O. Henriksson, M. Hindmarsh, C. Hoyos and N. Jokela, Gravitational Waves at Strong Coupling from an Effective Action, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128 (2022) 131101 [arXiv:2110.14442] [INSPIRE].
F. Bigazzi, A. Caddeo, A.L. Cotrone and A. Paredes, Dark Holograms and Gravitational Waves, JHEP 04 (2021) 094 [arXiv:2011.08757] [INSPIRE].
F. Bigazzi, A. Caddeo, T. Canneti and A.L. Cotrone, Bubble wall velocity at strong coupling, JHEP 08 (2021) 090 [arXiv:2104.12817] [INSPIRE].
P.B. Arnold, G.D. Moore and L.G. Yaffe, Transport coefficients in high temperature gauge theories. I. Leading log results, JHEP 11 (2000) 001 [hep-ph/0010177] [INSPIRE].
J. Polchinski and M.J. Strassler, The String dual of a confining four-dimensional gauge theory, hep-th/0003136 [INSPIRE].
K. Pilch and N.P. Warner, N = 2 supersymmetric RG flows and the IIB dilaton, Nucl. Phys. B 594 (2001) 209 [hep-th/0004063] [INSPIRE].
I.R. Klebanov and M.J. Strassler, Supergravity and a confining gauge theory: Duality cascades and chi SB resolution of naked singularities, JHEP 08 (2000) 052 [hep-th/0007191] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena and C. Núñez, Towards the large N limit of pure N = 1 superYang-Mills, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 (2001) 588 [hep-th/0008001] [INSPIRE].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
ArXiv ePrint: 2202.05241
Rights and permissions
Open Access . This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Castells-Tiestos, L., Casalderrey-Solana, J. Thermal emission of gravitational waves from weak to strong coupling. J. High Energ. Phys. 2022, 49 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2022)049
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2022)049