Velocity Statistics in Holographic Fluids: Magnetized Quark-Gluon Plasma and Superfluid Flow

We study the velocity statistics distribution of an external heavy particle in holographic fluids. We argue that when the dual supergravity background has a finite temperature horizon the velocity statistics goes generically as $1/v$, compatible with the jet-quenching intuition from the quark-gluon plasma. A careful analysis of the behavior of the classical string whose apparent worldsheet horizon deviates from the background horizon reveals that other regimes are possible. We numerically discuss two cases: the magnetized quark-gluon plasma and a model of superfluid flow. We explore a range of parameters in these top-down supergravity solutions including, respectively, the magnetic field and the superfluid velocity. We determine that the velocity statistics goes largely as $1/v$, however, as we leave the non-relativistic regime we observe some deviations.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures, references added and minor correction

Non-hermitian holography

Quantum theory can be formulated with certain non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. An anti-linear involution, denoted by PT, is a symmetry of such Hamiltonians. In the PT-symmetric regime the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian is related to a Hermitian one by a Hermitian similarity transformation. We extend the concept of non-Hermitian quantum theory to gauge-gravity duality. Non-Hermiticity is introduced via boundary conditions in asymptotically AdS spacetimes. At zero temperature the PT phase transition is identified as the point at which the solutions cease to be real. Surprisingly at finite temperature real black hole solutions can be found well outside the quasi-Hermitian regime. These backgrounds are however unstable to fluctuations which establishes the persistence of the holographic dual of the PT phase transition at finite temperature.Fil: Areán, Daniel. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; España. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Landsteiner, Karl. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; España. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Salazar, Ignacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Física La Plata. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Física La Plata; Argentin

Holographic disorder driven superconductor-metal transition

We implement the effects of disorder on a holographic superconductor by introducing a random chemical potential on the boundary. We demonstrate explicitly that increasing disorder leads to the formation of islands where the superconducting order is enhanced and subsequently to the transition to a metal. We study the behavior of the superfluid density and of the conductivity as a function of the strength of disorder. We find explanations for various marked features in the conductivities in terms of hydrodynamic quasinormal modes of the holographic superconductors. These identifications plus a particular disorder-dependent spectral weight shift in the conductivity point to a signature of the Higgs mode in the context of disordered holographic superconductors. We observe that the behavior of the order parameter close to the transition is not mean-field type as in the clean case; rather we find robust agreement with exp(-A|T-Tc|-ν), with ν=1.03±0.02 for this disorder-driven smeared transition.Instituto de Física La Plat

Pseudo-spontaneous U(1) symmetry breaking in hydrodynamics and holography

We investigate the low-energy dynamics of systems with pseudo-spontaneously broken U(1) symmetry and Goldstone phase relaxation. We construct a hydrodynamic framework which is able to capture these, in principle independent, effects. We consider two generalisations of the standard holographic superfluid model by adding an explicit breaking of the U(1) symmetry by either sourcing the charged bulk scalar or by introducing an explicit mass term for the bulk gauge field. We find agreement between the hydrodynamic dispersion relations and the quasi-normal modes of both holographic models. We verify that phase relaxation arises only due to the breaking of the inherent Goldstone shift symmetry. The interplay of a weak explicit breaking of the U(1) and phase relaxation renders the DC electric conductivity finite but does not result in a Drude-like peak. In this scenario we show the validity of a universal relation, found in the context of translational symmetry breaking, between the phase relaxation rate, the mass of the pseudo-Goldstone and the Goldstone diffusivityM.A. is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Grant No. 406235073 within the Heisenberg program. D.A. and S. Grieninger are supported by the ‘Atracción de Talento’ program (2017-T1/TIC-5258, Comunidad de Madrid) and through the grants SEV-2016-0597 and PGC2018-095976-B-C21. M.B. acknowledges the support of the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (Grant No.2019SHZDZX01). The work of S. Gray is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under Grant No. 406116891 within the Research Training Group RTG 2522/

Holographic superfluids and the Landau criterion

We revisit the question of stability of holographic superfluids with finite super-fluid velocity. Our method is based on applying the Landau criterion to the Quasinormal Mode (QNM) spectrum. In particular we study the QNMs related to the Goldstone modes of spontaneous symmetry breaking with linear and quadratic dispersions. In the linear case we show that the sound velocity becomes negative for large enough superfluid velocity and that the imaginary part of the quasinormal frequency moves to the upper half plane. Since the instability is strongest at finite wavelength, we take this as an indication for the existence of an inhomogeneous or striped condensed phase for large superfluid velocity. In the quadratic case the instability is present for arbitrarily small superfluid velocity.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasInstituto de Física La Plat

Mesons and Higgs branch in defect theories

We consider the defect theory obtained by intersecting D3- and D5-branes along two common spatial directions. We work in the approximation in which the D5-brane is a probe in the AdS_5xS^5 background. By adding worldvolume flux to the D5-brane and choosing an appropriate embedding of the probe in AdS_5xS^5, one gets a supersymmetric configuration in which some of the D3-branes recombine with the D5-brane. We check this fact by showing that the D5-brane can be regarded as a system of polarized D3-branes. On the field theory side this corresponds to the Higgs branch of the defect theory, where some of the fundamental hypermultiplet fields living on the intersection acquire a vacuum expectation value. We study the spectrum of mesonic bound states of the defect theory in this Higgs branch and show that it is continuous and gapless.Comment: 15 pages, LaTe

Quantum Critical Superfluid Flows and Anisotropic Domain Walls

We construct charged anisotropic AdS domain walls as solutions of a consistent truncation of type IIB string theory. These are a one-parameter family of solutions that flow to an AdS fixed point in the IR, exhibiting emergent conformal invariance and quantum criticality. They represent the zero-temperature limit of the holographic superfluids at finite superfluid velocity constructed in arXiv:1010.5777. We show that these domain walls exist only for velocities less than a critical value, agreeing in detail with a conjecture made there. We also comment about the IR limits of flows with velocities higher than this critical value, and point out an intriguing similarity between the phase diagrams of holographic superfluid flows and those of ordinary superconductors with imbalanced chemical potential.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. V2: Very minor corrections. JHEP versio

Holographic superfluids and the Landau criterion

We revisit the question of stability of holographic superfluids with finite super-fluid velocity. Our method is based on applying the Landau criterion to the Quasinormal Mode (QNM) spectrum. In particular we study the QNMs related to the Goldstone modes of spontaneous symmetry breaking with linear and quadratic dispersions. In the linear case we show that the sound velocity becomes negative for large enough superfluid velocity and that the imaginary part of the quasinormal frequency moves to the upper half plane. Since the instability is strongest at finite wavelength, we take this as an indication for the existence of an inhomogeneous or striped condensed phase for large superfluid velocity. In the quadratic case the instability is present for arbitrarily small superfluid velocity.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasInstituto de Física La Plat

Holographic Type II Goldstone bosons

The Goldstone theorem implies the appearance of an ungapped mode whenever a continuous global symmetry is spontaneously broken. In general it does not say anything about the precise form of the dispersion relation nor does it imply that there is one massless mode for each broken symmetry generator. It is a well-established fact that even for relativistic field theories in the presence of a chemical potential Goldstone modes with quadratic dispersion relation, the type II Goldstone bosons, appear in the spectrum. We develop two holographic models that feature type II Goldstone modes as part of the quasinormal mode spectrum. The models are based on simple generalizations with U(2) symmetry of the well-studied holographic s-wave superfluid. Our results include Goldstone modes without broken generators but with unusual realization of symmetries and a frequency dependent conductivity of striking resemblance to the one of Graphene.Instituto de Física La Plat

Gravity duals of 2d supersymmetric gauge theories

We find new supergravity solutions generated by D5-branes wrapping a four-cycle and preserving four and two supersymmetries. We first consider the configuration in which the fivebranes wrap a four-cycle in a Calabi-Yau threefold, which preserves four supersymmetries and is a gravity dual to the Coulomb branch of two-dimensional gauge theories with N=(2,2) supersymmetry. We also study the case of fivebranes wrapping a co-associative four-cycle in a manifold of G_2-holonomy, which provides a gravity dual of N=(1,1) supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in two dimensions. We also discuss the addition of unquenched fundamental matter fields to these backgrounds and find the corresponding gravity solutions with flavor brane sources.Comment: 34 pages + appendices; v2: minor improvement