High energy collisions in non-abelian gauge theories is currently a subject of great interest. In heavy ion collisions performed at RHIC and LHC the formation of a quark-gluon plasma is observed. The physics involved is presumably described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), a non-conformal field theory that exhibits confinement. Nevertheless, similar collisions in conformal field theories have been investigated over recent years by exploring the AdS/CFT duality. Although the dual of QCD is not known, the analogous process in gauge theories with a gravity dual can be described via the collision of two objects that form a black hole in an asymptotically Anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime. This is a challenging problem that requires solving Einstein’s equations in a dynamical setting.

In this talk I will describe a first step towards extending this program to gravitational duals of confining gauge theories. We adapt the Zero Frequency Limit (ZFL) framework — a linearised approach which has been very useful in simpler contexts — to the problem under consideration, rendering it amenable to semi-analytic treatment. Our results include some universal features that are expected also for non-linear collisions.