We make use of the AdS/CFT correspondence to determine the energy of an external quark-antiquark pair that moves through strongly-coupled thermal N = 4 super-Yang-Mills plasma, both in the rest frame of the plasma and in the rest frame of the pair. It is found that the pair feels no drag force, has an energy that reproduces the expected 1/L (or γ/L) behavior at small quarkantiquark separations, and becomes unbound beyond a certain screening length whose velocity-dependence we determine. We discuss the relation between the high-velocity limit of our results and the lightlike Wilson loop proposed recently as a definition of the jet-quenching parameter. *

We study the dynamics of a 'composite' or 'dressed' quark in stronglycoupled large-N c N = 4 super-Yang-Mills, making use of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We show that the standard string dynamics nicely captures the physics of the quark and its surrounding non-Abelian field configuration, making it possible to derive a relativistic equation of motion that incorporates the effects of radiation damping. From this equation one can deduce a non-standard dispersion relation for the composite quark, as well as a Lorentz covariant formula for its rate of radiation. We explore the consequences of the equation in a few simple examples.

We derive a semiclassical equation of motion for a "composite" quark in strongly coupled large-N_{c} N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory, making use of the anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence. The resulting nonlinear equation incorporates radiation damping, and reduces to the standard Lorentz-Dirac equation for external forces that are small on the scale of the quark Compton wavelength, but has no self-accelerating or preaccelerating solutions. From this equation one can read off a nonstandard dispersion relation for the quark, as well as a Lorentz-covariant formula for its radiation rate.

The equivalence between the Dirac method and Faddeev-Jackiw analysis for gauge theories is proved. In particular we trace out, in a stage by stage procedure, the standard classification of first and second class constraints of Dirac's method in the F-J approach. We also find that the Darboux transformation implied in the F-J reduction process can be viewed as a canonical transformation in Dirac approach. Unlike Dirac's method the F-J analysis is a classical reduction procedure, then the quantization can be achieved only in the framework of reduce and then quantize approach with all the know problems that this type of procedures presents. Finally we illustrate the equivalence by means of a particular example.UB-ECM-PF 95/15 hep-th/9610067

Through direct examination of the effect of the OM limit on the M2-brane worldvolume action, we derive a membrane action for OM theory, and more generally, for the eleven-dimensional M-theoretic construct known as Galilean or Wrapped M2brane (WM2) theory, which contains OM theory as a special class of states. In the static gauge, the action in question implies a discrete spectrum for the closed membrane of WM2 theory, which under double dimensional reduction is shown to reproduce the known NCOS/Wound closed string spectrum. We examine as well open membranes ending on each of the three types of M5-branes in WM2 theory (OM theory arising from the 'longitudinal' type), and show that the 'fully transverse' fivebrane is tensionless. As a prelude to the membrane, we also study the case of the string, where we likewise obtain a reparametrization-invariant action, and make contact with previous work.