Mass spectrum and thermodynamics of quasi-conformal gauge theories from gauge/gravity duality

Understand

We use gauge/gravity duality to study simultaneously the mass spectrum and the thermodynamics of a generic quasi-conformal gauge theory, specified by its beta function.

• The beta function of a quasi-conformal theory almost vanishes, and the coupling is almost constant between two widely separated energy scales.
• Depending on whether the gravity dual has a black hole or not, the mass spectrum is either a spectrum of quasinormal oscillations or a normal T=0 mass spectrum.
• The mass spectrum is quantitatively correlated with the thermal properties of the system.