title: Shear viscosity of strongly coupled N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma.
abstract: Using the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, we relate the shear viscosity eta of the finite-temperature N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in the large N, strong-coupling regime with the absorption cross section of low-energy gravitons by a near-extremal black three-brane. We show that in the limit of zero frequency this cross section coincides with the area of the horizon. From this result we find eta = pi / 8N(2)T3. We conjecture that for finite 't Hooft coupling g(2)(YM)N the shear viscosity is eta = f(g(2)(YM)N)N2T3, where f(x) is a monotonic function that decreases from O(x(-2)ln(-1)(1/x)) at small x to pi/8 when x-->infinity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Policastro
authors.forename: D T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Son
authors.forename: A O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Starinets