2,823 research outputs found
Electric-Magnetic Duality and Topological Insulators
We work out the action of the SL(2,Z) electric-magnetic duality group for an
insulator with a non-trivial permittivity, permeability and theta-angle. This
theory has recently been proposed to be the correct low-energy effective action
for topological insulators. As applications, we give manifestly SL(2,Z)
covariant expressions for the Faraday rotation at orthogonal incidence at the
interface of two such materials, as well as for the induced magnetic and
electric charges, slightly clarifying the meaning of expressions previously
derived in the literature. We also use electric-magnetic duality to find a
gravitational dual for a strongly coupled version of this theory using the
AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: 4 pages; version accepted by PR
Hadron Masses and Screening from AdS Wilson Loops
We show that in strongly coupled N=4 SYM the binding energy of a heavy and a
light quark is independent of the strength of the coupling constant. As a
consequence we are able to show that in the presence of light quarks the analog
of the QCD string can snap and color charges are screened. The resulting
neutral mesons interact with each other only via pion exchange and we estimate
the massesComment: 4 pages, revte
Notes on Properties of Holographic Matter
Probe branes with finite worldvolume electric flux in the background created
by a stack of Dp branes describe holographically strongly interacting
fundamental matter at finite density. We identify two quantities whose leading
low temperature behavior is independent of the dimensionality of the probe
branes: specific heat and DC conductivity. This behavior can be inferred from
the dynamics of the fundamental strings which provide a good description of the
probe branes in the regime of low temperatures and finite densities. We also
comment on the speed of sound on the branes and the temperature dependence of
DC conductivity at vanishing charge density.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures; v2: corrected error in Section 6, conclusions
unchanged; v3: improved figures and added clarifying comment
Mesons from global Anti-de Sitter space
In the context of gauge/gravity duality, we study both probe D7-- and probe
D5--branes in global Anti-de Sitter space. The dual field theory is N=4 theory
on R x S^3 with added flavour. The branes undergo a geometrical phase
transition in this geometry as function of the bare quark mass m_q in units of
1/R with R the S^3 radius. The meson spectra are obtained from fluctuations of
the brane probes. First, we study them numerically for finite quark mass
through the phase transition. Moreover, at zero quark mass we calculate the
meson spectra analytically both in supergravity and in free field theory on R x
S^3 and find that the results match: For the chiral primaries, the lowest level
is given by the zero point energy or by the scaling dimension of the operator
corresponding to the fluctuations, respectively. The higher levels are
equidistant. Similar results apply to the descendents. Our results confirm the
physical interpretation that the mesons cannot pair-produce any further when
their zero-point energy exceeds their binding energy.Comment: 43 pages, 8 figures, references edited, few typos corrected, updated
to match the published versio
A Holographic Fractional Topological Insulator
We give a holographic realization of the recently proposed low energy
effective action describing a fractional topological insulator. In particular
we verify that the surface of this hypothetical material supports a fractional
quantum Hall current corresponding to half that of a Laughlin state.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
The Stress-Energy Tensor of Flavor Fields from AdS/CFT
We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to study the transport properties of
massive N=2 hypermultiplet fields in an N=4 SU(Nc) super-Yang-Mills theory
plasma in the large Nc, large 't Hooft coupling limit, and in the presence of a
baryon number chemical potential and external electric and magnetic fields. In
particular, we compute the flavor fields' contribution to the stress-energy
tensor. We find infrared divergences in the stress-energy tensor, arising from
the flavor fields' constant rate of energy and momentum loss. We regulate these
divergences and extract the energy and momentum loss rates from the divergent
terms. We also check our result in various limits in which the divergences are
absent. The supergravity dual is a system of D7-branes, with a particular
configuration of worldvolume fields, probing an AdS-Schwarzschild background.
The supergravity calculation amounts to computing the stress-energy tensor of
the D7-branes.Comment: 32 pages; v2, added one footnote in section 2.2, added one reference,
version published in JHE
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
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