Low-lying gravitational modes in the scalar sector of the global AdS_4 black hole

We compute the quasinormal frequencies corresponding to the scalar sector of gravitational perturbations in the four-dimensional AdS-Schwarzschild black hole by using the master field formalism of hep-th/0305147. We argue that the non-deformation of the boundary metric favors a Robin boundary condition on the master field over the usual Dirichlet boundary condition mostly used in the literature. Using this Robin boundary condition we find a family of low-lying modes, whose frequencies match closely with predictions from linearized hydrodynamics on the boundary. In addition to the low-lying modes, we also see the usual sequence of modes with frequencies almost following an arithmetic progression.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures; v2: typos corrected; v3: algebraic derivation of hydrodynamic modes corrected, results unaltere

Hydrodynamics from the Dp-brane

We complete the computation of viscous transport coefficients in the near horizon geometries that arise from a stack of black Dp-branes for p=2,...,6 in the decoupling limit. The main new result is the obtention of the bulk viscosity which, for all p, is found to be related to the speed of sound by the simple relation \zeta/\eta = -2(v_s^2-1/p). For completeness the shear viscosity is rederived from gravitational perturbations in the shear and scalar channels. We comment on technical issues like the counterterms needed, or the possible dependence on the conformal frame.Comment: 15 page

Transport properties of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at finite coupling

Gauge theory-string theory duality describes strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric SU(n) Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature in terms of near extremal black 3-brane geometry in type IIB string theory. We use this correspondence to compute the leading correction in inverse 't Hooft coupling to the shear diffusion constant, bulk viscosity and the speed of sound in the large-n N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory plasma. The transport coefficients are extracted from the dispersion relation for the shear and the sound wave lowest quasinormal modes in the leading order alpha'-corrected black D3 brane geometry. We find the shear viscosity extracted from the shear diffusion constant to agree with result of [hep-th/0406264]; also, the leading correction to bulk viscosity and the speed of sound vanishes. Our computation provides a highly nontrivial consistency check on the hydrodynamic description of the alpha'-corrected nonextremal black branes in string theory.Comment: 19 pages, LaTe

AdS/CFT duality for non-relativistic field theory

We formulate a correspondence between non-relativistic conformal field theories (NRCFTs) in d-1 spatial dimensions and gravitational theories in AdS_{d+2} backgrounds with one compactified lightlike direction. The breaking of the maximal SO(2,d+1) symmetry of AdS_{d+2} to the non-relativistic conformal group arises from boundary conditions on bulk fields, without the need to introduce non-vacuum sources of energy-momentum. As a check of the proposal, we use the gravitational theory to reproduce the NRCFT state-operator correspondence between scaling dimensions of primary operators and energy eigenstates of the non-relativistic system placed in an external harmonic potential.Comment: 19 pages LaTeX, no figure

Thermodynamics of AdS/QCD within the 5D dilaton-gravity model

We calculate the pressure, entropy density, trace anomaly and speed of sound of the gluon plasma using the dilaton potential of Ref. arXiv:0911.0627[hep-ph] in the dilaton-gravity theory of AdS/QCD. The finite temperature observables are calculated from the Black Hole solutions of the Einstein equations, and using the Bekenstein-Hawking equality of the entropy with the area of the horizon. Renormalization is well defined, because the T=0 theory has asymptotic freedom. Comparison with lattice simulations is made.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. To appear in the proceedings of 15th International Conference in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD 10), Montpellier, France, 28 Jun - 3 Jul 201

The Hydrodynamics of M-Theory

We consider the low energy limit of a stack of N M-branes at finite temperature. In this limit, the M-branes are well described, via the AdS/CFT correspondence, in terms of classical solutions to the eleven dimensional supergravity equations of motion. We calculate Minkowski space two-point functions on these M-branes in the long-distance, low-frequency limit, i.e. the hydrodynamic limit, using the prescription of Son and Starinets [hep-th/0205051]. From these Green's functions for the R-currents and for components of the stress-energy tensor, we extract two kinds of diffusion constant and a viscosity. The N dependence of these physical quantities may help lead to a better understanding of M-branes.Comment: 1+19 pages, references added, section 5 clarified, eq. (72) correcte

Schwinger-Keldysh Propagators from AdS/CFT Correspondence

We demonstrate how to compute real-time Green's functions for a class of finite temperature field theories from their AdS gravity duals. In particular, we reproduce the two-by-two Schwinger-Keldysh matrix propagator from a gravity calculation. Our methods should work also for computing higher point Lorentzian signature correlators. We elucidate the boundary condition subtleties which hampered previous efforts to build a Lorentzian-signature AdS/CFT correspondence. For two-point correlators, our construction is automatically equivalent to the previously formulated prescription for the retarded propagator.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, references added; to appear in JHE

Supergravity and the jet quenching parameter in the presence of R-charge densities

Following a recent proposal, we employ the AdS/CFT correspondence to compute the jet quenching parameter for N=4 Yang-Mills theory at nonzero R-charge densities. Using as dual supergravity backgrounds non-extremal rotating branes, we find that the presence of the R-charges generically enhances the jet quenching phenomenon. However, at fixed temperature, this enhancement might or might not be a monotonically increasing function of the R-charge density and depends on the number of independent angular momenta describing the solution. We perform our analysis for the canonical as well as for the grand canonical ensemble which give qualitatively similar results.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures; v3: clarifying comments added, references added, version to appear in JHE

Low-Energy Theorems from Holography

In the context of gauge/gravity duality, we verify two types of gauge theory low-energy theorems, the dilation Ward identities and the decoupling of heavy flavor. First, we provide an analytic proof of non-trivial dilation Ward identities for a theory holographically dual to a background with gluon condensate (the self-dual Liu--Tseytlin background). In this way an important class of low-energy theorems for correlators of different operators with the trace of the energy-momentum tensor is established, which so far has been studied in field theory only. Another low-energy relationship, the so-called decoupling theorem, is numerically shown to hold universally in three holographic models involving both the quark and the gluon condensate. We show this by comparing the ratio of the quark and gluon condensates in three different examples of gravity backgrounds with non-trivial dilaton flow. As a by-product of our study, we also obtain gauge field condensate contributions to meson transport coefficients.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures, two references added, typos remove

Operator mixing and three-point functions in N=4 SYM

We study the three-point functions between two BPS and one non-BPS local gauge invariant operators in N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory. In particular we show, in explicit 1-loop examples, that the operator mixing discussed in arXiv:0810.0499 plays an important role in the computations of the correlators and is necessary to cancel contributions that would violate the constraints following from the superconformal and the bonus U(1)_Y symmetries. We analyse the same type of correlators also at strong coupling by using the BMN limit of the AdS_5xS^5 string theory. Again the mixing between states with different types of impurities is crucial to ensure the cancellation of various amplitudes that would violate the constraints mentioned above. However, on the string side, we also find some examples of interactions between one non-BPS and two BPS states that do not satisfy expectations based on the superconformal and the bonus U(1)_Y symmetries.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figure