  Quantum field theories of strongly interacting matter sometimes have a useful
holographic description in terms of the variables of a gravitational theory in
higher dimensions. This duality maps time dependent physics in the gauge theory
to time dependent solutions of the Einstein equations in the gravity theory. In
order to better understand the process by which "real world" theories such as
QCD behave out of thermodynamic equilibrium, we study time dependent
perturbations to states in a model of a confining, strongly coupled gauge
theory via holography. Operationally, this involves solving a set of non-linear
Einstein equations supplemented with specific time dependent boundary
conditions. The resulting solutions allow one to comment on the timescale by
which the perturbed states thermalize, as well as to quantify the properties of
the final state as a function of the perturbation parameters. We comment on the
influence of the dual gauge theory's confinement scale on these results, as
well as the appearance of a previously anticipated universal scaling regime in
the "abrupt quench" limit.

High Energy Physics - Theory;High Energy Physics - Phenomenology