Abstract
The equilibrium thermodynamic properties of the plasma are studied nonperturbatively in the large- limit, via high-precision lattice simulations at temperatures from to ( being the critical deconfinement temperature). Our results for Yang-Mills theories with , , , , and colors show a very mild dependence on , supporting the idea that the QCD plasma could be described by models based on the large- limit. We compare our data with various theoretical descriptions, including, in particular, the improved holographic QCD model proposed by Kiritsis and collaborators. We also comment on the relevance of an AdS/CFT description in a phenomenologically interesting temperature range where the system, while still strongly coupled, becomes approximately scale invariant. Finally, we extrapolate our results to the limit.
- Received 20 August 2009
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.232001
©2009 American Physical Society