Order Parameters and Color-Flavor Center Symmetry in QCD.

Common lore suggests that N-color QCD with massive quarks has no useful order parameters that can be nontrivial at zero baryon density. However, such order parameters do exist when there are n_{f} quark flavors with a common mass and d≡gcd(n_{f},N)>1. These theories have a Z_{d} color-flavor center symmetry arising from intertwined color center transformations and cyclic flavor permutations.

Holography and Colliding gravitational shock waves in asymptotically AdS5 spacetime.

Using holography, we study the collision of planar shock waves in strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. This requires the numerical solution of a dual gravitational initial value problem in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime.

Horizon formation and far-from-equilibrium isotropization in a supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma.

Using gauge-gravity duality, we study the creation and evolution of anisotropic, homogeneous strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma. In the dual gravitational description, this corresponds to horizon formation in a geometry driven to be anisotropic by a time-dependent change in boundary conditions.

Wake of a quark moving through a strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma.

The energy density wake produced by a heavy quark moving through a strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma is computed using gauge-string duality.

Apparent thermalization due to plasma instabilities in the quark-gluon plasma.

Hydrodynamical modeling of heavy-ion collisions at RHIC suggests that the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) "thermalizes" in a remarkably short time scale, about 0.6 fm/c. We argue that this should be viewed as indicating fast isotropization, but not necessarily complete thermalization, of the nonequilibrium QGP.