Abstract.Hadron physics deals with the study of strongly interacting subatomic particles such as neutrons, protons, pions and others, collectively known as baryons and mesons. Physics of strong interaction is difficult. There are several approaches to understand it. However, in the recent years, an approach called, holographic QCD, based on string theory (or gauge-gravity duality) is becoming popular providing an alternative description of strong interaction physics. In this article, we aim to discuss development of strong interaction physics through QCD and string theory, leading to holographic QCD.
IntroductionThe accepted theory of strong nuclear forces, or strong interactions, is Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) [1], an Yang-Mills gauge theory with SU (3) gauge group. It can be studied at high energies using perturbation theory with enormous success, but, it is very hard, known to be intractable for the analytical analysis at low energies because of the strong coupling problem. The low energy regime of QCD contains the most interesting phenomena related to hadron physics, thus it is of great theoretical interest. Due to unavailability of suitable analytical tools for understanding QCD in the non-perturbative regime, QCD inspired heuristic models and approximation schemes, ranging from the bag models [2, 3] to chiral perturbation theory [4,5] have been used to get partial information about the dynamics of QCD in the strongly coupled regime. These models use simple frameworks for the analysis of some aspects of non-perturbative QCD, but give impressive results. Though the simplicity of the effective models make them very interesting and useful for the phenomenology of strong interactions, no rigorous relation has been established with these models to QCD in spite of much efforts. Another approach of studying non-perturbative QCD is by numerical simulation using lattice gauge theory or lattice QCD [6,7]. This procedure, though computationally intensive, appears to be successful for the calculation of static quantities such as the vacuum structure and the spectrum.Almost immediately after the discovery of asymptotic freedom in QCD, existence of a new phase of matter called Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was predicted [8,9] at very high temperature and density. QGP was expected to be made of de-confined free quarks and gluons. The programme of heavy ion collision at relativistic energies started to realize QGP experimentally. The experimental observations, over the last decade, in relativistic heavy ion collisions have revealed that QGP is, contrary to expectations, also a strongly coupled system instead of a gas