Wilson - Polyakov Loop at Finite Temperature in Large N Gauge Theory and Anti - de Sitter Supergravity

Aspects of d = 4,N = 4 superconformal U(N) gauge theory are studied at finite temperature. Utilizing dual description of large N and strong coupling limit via Type IIB string theory compactification on Schwarzschild anti-de Sitter spacetime, we study correlations of WilsonPolyakov loops and heavy quark potential thereof. We find that the heavy quark potential is Coulomb-like and has a finite range, as expected for gauge theory in high temperature, deconfinement phase. The potential exhibits finite temperature scaling consistent with underlying conformal invariance. We also study isolated heavy quark on probe D3-brane world-volume and find supporting evidence that near extremal D3-branes are located at Schwarzschild horizon. 1 Work supported in part by KOSEF SRC-Program,Ministry of Education Grant BSRI 97-2418, SNU Faculty Research Fund and Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies Faculty Fellowship, by GIF the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Reseach and by the European Commission TMP Programme ERBFMRX-CT96-0045.