97 research outputs found
Critical Exponents from AdS/CFT with Flavor
We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to study the thermodynamics of massive N=2
supersymmetric hypermultiplet flavor fields coupled to N=4 supersymmetric
SU(Nc) Yang-Mills theory, formulated on curved four-manifolds, in the limits of
large Nc and large 't Hooft coupling. The gravitational duals are probe
D-branes in global thermal AdS. These D-branes may undergo a topology-changing
transition in the bulk. The D-brane embeddings near the point of the topology
change exhibit a scaling symmetry. The associated scaling exponents can be
either real- or complex-valued. Which regime applies depends on the
dimensionality of a collapsing submanifold in the critical embedding. When the
scaling exponents are complex-valued, a first-order transition associated with
the flavor fields appears in the dual field theory. Real scaling exponents are
expected to be associated with a continuous transition in the dual field
theory. For one example with real exponents, the D7-brane, we study the
transition in detail. We find two field theory observables that diverge at the
critical point, and we compute the associated critical exponents. We also
present analytic and numerical evidence that the transition expresses itself in
the meson spectrum as a non-analyticity at the critical point. We argue that
the transition we study is a true phase transition only when the 't Hooft
coupling is strictly infinite.Comment: 31 pages, 21 eps files in 12 figures; v2 added one reference and one
footnote, version published in JHE
Universal Holographic Chiral Dynamics in an External Magnetic Field
In this work we further extend the investigation of holographic gauge
theories in external magnetic fields, continuing earlier work. We study the
phenomenon of magnetic catalysis of mass generation in 1+3 and 1+2 dimensions,
using D3/D7- and D3/D5-brane systems, respectively. We obtain the low energy
effective actions of the corresponding pseudo Goldstone bosons and study their
dispersion relations. The D3/D7 system exhibits the usual
Gell-Mann--Oakes--Renner (GMOR) relation and a relativistic dispersion
relation, while the D3/D5 system exhibits a quadratic non-relativistic
dispersion relation and a modified linear GMOR relation. The low energy
effective action of the D3/D5 system is related to that describing magnon
excitations in a ferromagnet. We also study properties of general Dp/Dq systems
in an external magnetic field and verify the universality of the magnetic
catalysis of dynamical symmetry breaking.Comment: 41 pages, 11 figures, references adde
Holographic Flavor Transport in Arbitrary Constant Background Fields
We use gauge-gravity duality to compute a new transport coefficient
associated with a number Nf of massive N=2 supersymmetric hypermultiplet fields
propagating through an N=4 SU(Nc) super-Yang-Mills theory plasma in the limits
of large Nc and large 't Hooft coupling, with Nf << Nc. We introduce a baryon
number density as well as arbitrary constant electric and magnetic fields,
generalizing previous calculations by including a magnetic field with a
component parallel to the electric field. We can thus compute all components of
the conductivity tensor associated with transport of baryon number charge,
including a component never before calculated in gauge-gravity duality. We also
compute the contribution that the flavor degrees of freedom make to the
stress-energy tensor, which exhibits divergences associated with the rates of
energy and momentum loss of the flavor degrees of freedom. We discuss two
currents that are free from these divergences, one of which becomes anomalous
when the magnetic field has a component parallel to the electric field and
hence may be related to recent study of charge transport in the presence of
anomalies.Comment: 27 page
Dynamics of the chiral phase transition from AdS/CFT duality
We use Lorentzian signature AdS/CFT duality to study a first order phase
transition in strongly coupled gauge theories which is akin to the chiral phase
transition in QCD. We discuss the relation between the latent heat and the
energy (suitably defined) of the component of a D-brane which lies behind the
horizon at the critical temperature. A numerical simulation of a dynamical
phase transition in an expanding, cooling Quark-Gluon plasma produced in a
relativistic collision is carried out.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figure
Flavor-symmetry Breaking with Charged Probes
We discuss the recombination of brane/anti-brane pairs carrying brane
charge in . These configurations are dual to co-dimension one
defects in the super-Yang-Mills description. Due to their
charge, these defects are actually domain walls in the dual gauge theory,
interpolating between vacua of different gauge symmetry. A pair of unjoined
defects each carry localized dimensional fermions and possess a global
flavor symmetry while the recombined brane/anti-brane pairs
exhibit only a diagonal U(N). We study the thermodynamics of this
flavor-symmetry breaking under the influence of external magnetic field.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure
Sum rules, plasma frequencies and Hall phenomenology in holographic plasmas
We study the AC optical and hall conductivities of Dp/Dq-branes intersections
in the probe approximation and use sum-rules to study various associated
transport coefficients. We determine that the presence of massive fundamental
matter, as compared to massless fundamental matter described holographically by
a theory with no dimensional defects, reduces the plasma frequency. We further
show that this is not the case when the brane intersections include defects. We
discuss in detail how to implement correctly the regularization of retarded
Green's functions so that the dispersion relations are satisfied and the low
energy behaviour of the system is physically realistic.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures. v2.minor changes, published versio
AdS/CFT with Flavour in Electric and Magnetic Kalb-Ramond Fields
We investigate gauge/gravity duals with flavour for which pure-gauge
Kalb-Ramond B fields are turned on in the background, into which a D7 brane
probe is embedded. First we consider the case of a magnetic field in two of the
spatial boundary directions. We show that at finite temperature, i.e. in the
AdS-Schwarzschild background, the B field has a stabilizing effect on the
mesons and chiral symmetry breaking occurs for a sufficiently large value of
the B field. Then we turn to the electric case of a B field in the temporal
direction and one spatial boundary direction. In this case, there is a singular
region in which it is necessary to turn on a gauge field on the brane in order
to ensure reality of the brane action. We find that the brane embeddings are
attracted towards this region. Far away from this region, in the weak field
case at zero temperature, we investigate the meson spectrum and find a mass
shift similar to the Stark effect.Comment: 34 pages, 18 figures, v2: added references and comments on mode
decoupling, on thermodynamics and holographic renormalisation, JHEP style,
v3: Final published versio
Inverse magnetic catalysis in dense holographic matter
We study the chiral phase transition in a magnetic field at finite
temperature and chemical potential within the Sakai-Sugimoto model, a
holographic top-down approach to (large-N_c) QCD. We consider the limit of a
small separation of the flavor D8-branes, which corresponds to a dual field
theory comparable to a Nambu-Jona Lasinio (NJL) model. Mapping out the surface
of the chiral phase transition in the parameter space of magnetic field
strength, quark chemical potential, and temperature, we find that for small
temperatures the addition of a magnetic field decreases the critical chemical
potential for chiral symmetry restoration - in contrast to the case of
vanishing chemical potential where, in accordance with the familiar phenomenon
of magnetic catalysis, the magnetic field favors the chirally broken phase.
This "inverse magnetic catalysis" (IMC) appears to be associated with a
previously found magnetic phase transition within the chirally symmetric phase
that shows an intriguing similarity to a transition into the lowest Landau
level. We estimate IMC to persist up to 10^{19} G at low temperatures.Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures, v3: extended discussion; new appendix D;
references added; version to appear in JHE
Toward a Holographic Model of Superconducting Fermions
We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to study N=4 supersymmetric SU(Nc)
Yang-Mills theory, in the limits of large Nc and large 't Hooft coupling,
coupled to a number Nf of massless hypermultiplet fields in the fundamental
representation of the gauge group. We identify a U(1) subgroup of the
R-symmetry under which the fermions in the hypermultiplet are charged but the
scalars are not. All the hypermultiplet fields are also charged under a U(1)
baryon number symmetry. We introduce an external magnetic field for the baryon
number U(1), which triggers the spontaneous breaking of the U(1) R-symmetry,
and we then introduce a chemical potential for the U(1) R-charge, producing a
state with a nonzero density of the U(1) R-charge. The system should then
exhibit superconductivity of the U(1) R-charge. The dual supergravity
description is a number Nf of D7-branes in AdS5 x S5 with angular momentum on
the S5 and a worldvolume magnetic field. We study the zero-temperature
thermodynamics of the system, and find that for sufficiently large magnetic
field the system prefers to be in the symmetry-broken phase. For smaller
magnetic fields we find a discontinuous free energy, indicating that our
gravitational setup does not capture all equilibrium states of the field
theory.Comment: 32 pages, 22 eps files in 9 figure
Thermodynamics of Holographic Defects
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence, we study the thermodynamic properties and
the phase diagram of matter fields on (2+1)-dimensional defects coupled to a
(3+1)-dimensional N=4 SYM "heat bath". Considering a background magnetic field,
(net) quark density, defect "magnitude" and the mass of the
matter, we study the defect contribution to the thermodynamic potentials and
their first and second derivatives to map the phases and study their physical
properties.
We find some features that are qualitatively similar to other systems e.g. in
(3+1) dimensions and a number of features that are particular to the defect
nature, such as its magnetic properties, unexpected properties at T->0 and
finite density; and the finite effects, e.g. a diverging
susceptibility and vanishing density of states at small temperatures, a
physically consistent negative heat capacity and new types of consistent
phases.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figures (jpg and pdf), typos fixed and references added,
final version published in JHE
- âŠ