Understanding the strong coupling limit of the N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature -: art. no. 046005

Recently, a number of intriguing results have been obtained for strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in vacuum and matter, using the AdS-CFT correspondence. In this work, we provide a physical picture supporting and explaining most of these results within the gauge theory. The modified Coulomb's law at strong coupling forces static charges to communicate via the high frequency modes of the gauge or scalar fields. Therefore, the interaction between even relativistically moving charges can be approximated by a potential. At strong coupling, WKB arguments yield a series of deeply bound states, whereby the large Coulomb attraction is balanced by centrifugation. The result is a constant density of light bound states at any value of the strong coupling, explaining why the thermodynamics and kinetics are coupling constant independent. In essence, at strong coupling the matter is not made of the original quasiparticles but of much lighter (binary) composites. A transition from weak to strong coupling is reminiscent of a transition from high to low temperature in QCD. We establish novel results for screening in vacuum and matter through a dominant set of diagrams some of which are in qualitative agreement with known strong coupling results.