  In 1998, J. M. Maldacena conjectured a precise duality in the low-energy (or
decoupling) regime between a large N strongly-coupled SU(N) super-Yang-Mills
theory defined in the four-dimensional Minkowski world-volume M^4 of a stack of
N coincident D3-branes and the supergravity limit of a weakly-coupled type IIB
closed superstring theory on AdS_5*S^5. This communication aims at introducing
concepts and methods used to derive, in the gauge/string correspondence
framework, the interaction potentials of mesons and baryons at zero and finite
temperature. Especially, emphasize will be made on the linear behavior of the
bound-state potentials derived in the gravity side. Although AdS/CFT cannot be
applied ab initio to QCD-like gauge theories and remains a controversial topic,
at least at zero temperature, we will also discuss AdS/QCD criteria proposed
for a holographic description of the mechanism of confinement.
