Multiply wound Polyakov loops at strong coupling

We study the expectation value of higher rank Polyakov-Maldacena loops that wrap the thermal circle in strongly coupled N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. This is achieved by considering probe D3 and D5 brane embeddings in the dual black hole geometry. Nontrivial dependence on the rank is captured through D5 branes. We find N-2/3 corrections, reminiscent of the scaling behavior near a Gross-Witten transition.