Transport properties of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at finite coupling -: art. no. 103

Gauge theory-string theory duality describes strongly coupled N = 4 supersymmetric SU(n(c)) Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature in terms of near extremal black 3-brane geometry in type IIB string theory. We use this correspondence to compute the leading correction in the inverse 't Hooft coupling to the shear diffusion constant, bulk viscosity and the speed of sound in the large-n(c) N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory plasma. The transport coefficients are extracted from the dispersion relation of the shear and the sound wave lowest quasinormal modes in the leading order alpha'-corrected black D3 brane geometry. We find the shear viscosity extracted from the shear diffusion constant to agree with result of [hep-th/ 0406264]; also, the leading correction to bulk viscosity and the speed of sound vanishes. Our computation provides a highly nontrivial consistency check on the hydrodynamic description of the alpha'-corrected nonextremal black branes in string theory.