Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

A hybrid non-perturbative model for the Quark Gluon Plasma

Ayan Mukhopadhyay

Physics Department, IIT Madras

I will discuss a new non-perturbative approach to QCD that integrates perturbative physics with the holographic duality of string theory. Based on this we will construct a simple model of
the Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) that consists of two fluids coupled via their effective metrics. We will show that such a simple model remarkably reproduces many qualitative features of the complex phase
diagram of QCD featuring both crossover behavior and a first order transition region separated by a second order critical point. We will also study the collective modes and find that although
hydrodynamic behavior is strongly modified by the holographic sector, many other aspects of collective flow receive only small non-perturbative corrections and are governed essentially by perturbative
physics. These features of the QGP have presented longstanding challenges for theory some of which can be qualitatively addressed via our simple model.