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A Rotation/Magnetism Analogy for the Quark-Gluon Plasma

In peripheral heavy ion collisions, the Quark-Gluon Plasma that may be formed often has a large angular momentum per unit energy. This angular momentum may take the form of (local) rotation. In many physical systems, rotation can have effects analogous to those produced by a magnetic field; thus, there is a risk that the effects of local rotation in the QGP might be mistaken for those of the large genuine magnetic fields which are also known to arise in these systems. Here we use the gauge-gravity duality to investigate this, and we find indeed that, with realistic parameter values, local rotation has effects on the QGP (at high values of the baryonic chemical potential) which are not only of the same kind as those produced by magnetic fields, but which can in fact be substantially larger. Furthermore, the combined effect of rotation and magnetism is to change the shape of the main quark matter phase transition line in an interesting way, reducing the magnitude of its curvature; again, local rotation contributes to this phenomenon at least as strongly as magnetism.