Coupling constant corrections in a holographic model of heavy ion collisions

Understand

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%.