Holographic Brownian motion and time scales in strongly coupled plasmas

We study Brownian motion of a heavy quark in field theory plasma in the AdS/CFT setup and discuss the time scales characterizing the interaction between the Brownian particle and plasma constituents. Based on a simple kinetic theory, we first argue that the mean-free-path time is related to the connected 4-point function of the random force felt by the Brownian particle. Then, by holographically computing the 4-point function and regularizing the IR divergence appearing in the computation, we write down a general formula for the mean-free-path time, and apply it to the STU black hole which corresponds to plasma charged under three U(1)R-charges. The result indicates that the Brownian particle collides with many plasma constituents simultaneously.