Expanding plasmas and quasinormal modes of anti-de Sitter black holes

Abstract

We compute the gravitational quasinormal modes of the global AdS 5-Schwarzschild solution. We show how to use the holographic dual of these modes to describe a thermal plasma of finite extent expanding in a slightly anisotropic fashion. We compare these flows with the behavior of quark-gluon plasmas produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions by estimating the elliptic flow coefficient and the thermalization time. © SISSA 2007.