New Mechanism for Quark Energy Loss

Abstract

We show that a heavy quark moving sufficiently fast through a quark-gluon plasma may lose energy by Cherenkov-radiating mesons. We demonstrate that this takes place in all strongly coupled, large-N{c} plasmas with a gravity dual. The energy loss is exactly calculable in these models despite being an O(1/N{c}) effect. We discuss implications for heavy-ion collision experiments.