334 research outputs found
Strongly-coupled anisotropic gauge theories and holography
We initiate a non-perturbative study of anisotropic, non-conformal and
confining gauge theories that are holographically realized in gravity by
generic Einstein-Axion-Dilaton systems. In the vacuum our solutions describe RG
flows from a conformal field theory in the UV to generic scaling solutions in
the IR with generic hyperscaling violation and dynamical exponents and
. We formulate a generalization of the holographic c-theorem to the
anisotropic case. At finite temperature, we discover that the anisotropic
deformation reduces the confinement-deconfinement phase transition temperature
suggesting a possible alternative explanation of inverse magnetic catalysis
solely based on anisotropy. We also study transport and diffusion properties in
anisotropic theories and observe in particular that the butterfly velocity that
characterizes both diffusion and growth of chaos transverse to the anisotropic
direction, saturates a constant value in the IR which can exceed the bound
given by the conformal value.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures; v2: minor improvements, references added, version
accepted for publication in PR
Holographic Conformal Window - A Bottom Up Approach
We propose a five-dimensional framework for modeling the background geometry
associated to ordinary Yang-Mills (YM) as well as to nonsupersymmetric gauge
theories possessing an infrared fixed point with fermions in various
representations of the underlying gauge group. The model is based on the
improved holographic approach, on the string theory side, and on the
conjectured all-orders beta function for the gauge theory one. We first analyze
the YM gauge theory. We then investigate the effects of adding flavors and show
that, in the holographic description of the conformal window, the geometry
becomes AdS when approaching the ultraviolet and the infrared regimes. As the
number of flavors increases within the conformal window we observe that the
geometry becomes more and more of AdS type over the entire energy range.Comment: 20 Pages, 3 Figures. v2: references adde
Universal rapidity scaling of entanglement entropy inside hadrons from conformal invariance
When a hadron is probed at high energy, a non-trivial quantum entanglement
entropy inside the hadron emerges due to the lack of complete information about
the hadron wave function extracted from this measurement. In the high energy
limit, the hadron becomes a maximally entangled state, with a linear dependence
of entanglement entropy on rapidity, as has been found in a recent analysis
based on parton description. In this Letter, we use an effective conformal
field theoretic description of hadrons on the lightcone to show that the linear
dependence of the entanglement entropy on rapidity found in parton description
is a general consequence of approximate conformal invariance and does not
depend on the assumption of weak coupling. Our result also provides further
evidence for a duality between the parton and string descriptions of hadrons.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
Holographic entanglement as nonlocal magnetism
The Ryu-Takayanagi prescription can be cast in terms of a set of microscopic
threads that help visualize holographic entanglement in terms of distillation
of EPR pairs. While this framework has been exploited for regions with a high
degree of symmetry, we take the first steps towards understanding general
entangling regions, focusing on AdS. Inspired by simple constructions
achieved for the case of disks and the half-plane, we reformulate bit threads
in terms of a magnetic-like field generated by a current flowing through the
boundary of the entangling region. The construction is possible for these
highly symmetric settings, leading us to a modified Biot-Savart law in curved
space that fully characterizes the entanglement structure of the state. For
general entangling regions, the prescription breaks down as the corresponding
modular Hamiltonians become inherently nonlocal. We develop a formalism for
general shape deformations and derive a flow equation that accounts for these
effects as a systematic expansion. We solve this equation for a complete set of
small deformations and show that the structure of the expansion explicitly
codifies the expected nonlocalities. Our findings are consistent with numerical
results existing in the literature, and shed light on the fundamental nature of
quantum entanglement as a nonlocal phenomenon.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figure
Holography and Thermodynamics of 5D Dilaton-gravity
The asymptotically-logarithmically-AdS black-hole solutions of 5D dilaton
gravity with a monotonic dilaton potential are analyzed in detail. Such
theories are holographically very close to pure Yang-Mills theory in four
dimensions. The existence and uniqueness of black-hole solutions is shown. It
is also shown that a Hawking-Page transition exists at finite temperature if
and only if the potential corresponds to a confining theory. The physics of the
transition matches in detail with that of deconfinement of the Yang-Mills
theory. The high-temperature phase asymptotes to a free gluon gas at high
temperature matching the expected behavior from asymptotic freedom. The thermal
gluon condensate is calculated and shown to be crucial for the existence of a
non-trivial deconfining transition. The condensate of the topological charge is
shown to vanish in the deconfined phase.Comment: LaTeX, 61 pages (main body) + 58 pages (appendix), 25 eps figures.
Revised version, published in JHEP. Two equations added in Section 7.4; typos
corrected; references adde
Probes on D3-D7 Quark-Gluon Plasmas
We study the holographic dual model of quenched flavors immersed in a
quark-gluon plasma with massless dynamical quarks in the Veneziano limit. This
is modeled by embedding a probe D7 brane in a background where the backreaction
of massless D7 branes has been taken into account. The background, and hence
the effects, are perturbative in the Veneziano parameter N_f/N_c, therefore
giving small shifts of all magnitudes like the constituent mass, the quark
condensate, and several transport coefficients. We provide qualitative results
for the effect of flavor degrees of freedom on the probes. For example, the
meson melting temperature is enhanced, while the screening length is
diminished. The drag force is also enhanced.Comment: 31 pages, 17 figure
Bulk spectral function sum rule in QCD-like theories with a holographic dual
We derive the sum rule for the spectral function of the stress-energy tensor
in the bulk (uniform dilatation) channel in a general class of strongly coupled
field theories. This class includes theories holographically dual to a theory
of gravity coupled to a single scalar field, representing the operator of the
scale anomaly. In the limit when the operator becomes marginal, the sum rule
coincides with that in QCD. Using the holographic model, we verify explicitly
the cancellation between large and small frequency contributions to the
spectral integral required to satisfy the sum rule in such QCD-like theories.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure
Thermodynamics of SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in 2+1 dimensions II - The deconfined phase
We present a non-perturbative study of the equation of state in the
deconfined phase of Yang-Mills theories in D=2+1 dimensions. We introduce a
holographic model, based on the improved holographic QCD model, from which we
derive a non-trivial relation between the order of the deconfinement phase
transition and the behavior of the trace of the energy-momentum tensor as a
function of the temperature T. We compare the theoretical predictions of this
holographic model with a new set of high-precision numerical results from
lattice simulations of SU(N) theories with N=2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 colors. The
latter reveal that, similarly to the D=3+1 case, the bulk equilibrium
thermodynamic quantities (pressure, trace of the energy-momentum tensor, energy
density and entropy density) exhibit nearly perfect proportionality to the
number of gluons, and can be successfully compared with the holographic
predictions in a broad range of temperatures. Finally, we also show that, again
similarly to the D=3+1 case, the trace of the energy-momentum tensor appears to
be proportional to T^2 in a wide temperature range, starting from approximately
1.2 T_c, where T_c denotes the critical deconfinement temperature.Comment: 2+36 pages, 10 figures; v2: comments added, curves showing the
holographic predictions included in the plots of the pressure and energy and
entropy densities, typos corrected: version published in JHE
NFE2L2/NRF2, OGG1, and cytokine responses of human gingival keratinocytes against oxidative insults of various origin
ObjectiveBacterial or tobacco-related insults induce oxidative stress in gingival keratinocytes. The aim of this study was to investigate anti-oxidative and cytokine responses of human gingival keratinocytes (HMK cells) against Porphyromonas gingivalis lipopolysaccharide (Pg LPS), nicotine, and 4-nitroquinoline N-oxide (4-NQO).Materials and methodsHMK cells were incubated with Pg LPS (1 µl/ml), nicotine (1.54 mM), and 4-NQO (1 µM) for 24 h. Intracellular and extracellular levels of interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra), IL-8, monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were measured with the Luminex® xMAP™ technique, and nuclear factor, erythroid 2 like 2 (NFE2L2/NRF2) and 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase (OGG1) with Western blots. Data were statistically analyzed by two-way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction.ResultsAll tested oxidative stress inducers increased intracellular OGG1 levels, whereas only nicotine and 4-NQO induced NFE2L2/NRF2 levels. Nicotine, 4-NQO, and their combinational applications with Pg LPS induced the secretions of IL-1β and IL-1Ra, while that of IL-8 was inhibited by the presence of Pg LPS. MCP-1 secretion was suppressed by nicotine, alone and together with Pg LPS, while 4-NQO activated its secretion. Treatment of HMK cells with PgLPS, nicotine, 4-NQO, or their combinations did not affect VEGF levels.ConclusionPg LPS, nicotine, and 4-NQO induce oxidative stress and regulate anti-oxidative response and cytokine expressions in human gingival keratinocytes differently. These results may indicate that bacterial and tobacco-related insults regulate distinct pathways.</div
Quantum critical lines in holographic phases with (un)broken symmetry
All possible scaling IR asymptotics in homogeneous, translation invariant
holographic phases preserving or breaking a U(1) symmetry in the IR are
classified. Scale invariant geometries where the scalar extremizes its
effective potential are distinguished from hyperscaling violating geometries
where the scalar runs logarithmically. It is shown that the general critical
saddle-point solutions are characterized by three critical exponents (). Both exact solutions as well as leading behaviors are exhibited.
Using them, neutral or charged geometries realizing both fractionalized or
cohesive phases are found. The generic global IR picture emerging is that of
quantum critical lines, separated by quantum critical points which correspond
to the scale invariant solutions with a constant scalar.Comment: v3: 32+29 pages, 2 figures. Matches version published in JHEP.
Important addition of an exponent characterizing the IR scaling of the
electric potentia
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