On the spectra of scalar mesons from HQCD models

We determine the holographic spectra of scalar mesons from the fluctuations of the embedding of flavor D-brane probes in HQCD models. The models we consider include a generalization of the Sakai Sugimoto model at zero temperature and at the "high-temperature intermediate phase", where the system is in a deconfining phase while admitting chiral symmetry breaking and a non-critical 6d model at zero temperature. All these models are based on backgrounds associated with near extremal N_c D4 branes and a set of N_f<<N_c flavor probe branes that admit geometrical chiral symmetry breaking. We point out that the spectra of these models include a 0^{--} branch which does not show up in nature. At zero temperature we found that the masses of the mesons M_n depend on the "constituent quark mass" parameter m^c_q and on the excitation number n as M_n^2 m^c_q and M^2_n n^{1.7} for the ten dimensional case and as M_n m^c_q and M_n n^{0.75} in the non-critical case. At the high temperature intermediate phase we detect a decrease of the masses of low spin mesons as a function of the temperature similar to holographic vector mesons and to lattice calculations.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure

Comments on Mesonic Correlators in the Worldline Formalism

We elaborate on how to incorporate mesonic correlators into the worldline formalism. We consider possible applications to QCD-like theories in various dimensions. We focus on large-N_c two dimensional QCD (the 't Hooft model) and relate it to a single harmonic oscillator. We also discuss the dependence of the Peskin S-parameter on the number of massless flavors and their representation and compare our expression to the corresponding expression obtained at weak coupling. Finally, we use the worldline formalism to discuss how the Veneziano limit of QCD is realized in holography in the limit of small N_f/N_c.Comment: 14 pages, LaTex. 6 eps figures. v2: minor changes, typos fixed. To appear in Nuclear Physics

Holographic technicolor models and their S-parameter

We study the Peskin-Takeuchi S-parameter of holographic technicolor models. We present the recipe for computing the parameter in a generalized holographic setup. We then apply it to several holographic models that include: (a) the Sakai-Sugimoto model and (b) its non-compactified cousin, (c) a non-critical analog of (a) based on near extremal AdS_6 background, (d) the KMMW model which is similar to model (a) but with D6 and anti-D6 flavor branes replacing the D8 and anti-D8 branes, (e) a model based on D5 branes compactified on two S^1s with D7 and anti-7 probe branes and (f) the conifold model with the same probe branes as in (e). The models are gravity duals of gauge theories with U(N_{TC}) gauge theory and with a breakdown of a flavor symmetry U(N_{TF})xU(N_{TF}) to U_V(N_{TF}). The models (a), (c),(d) and (e) are duals of a confining gauge theories whereas (b) and (f) associate with non confining models. The S-parameter was found to be S=sN_{TC} where s is given by 0.017\lambda_{TC}, 0.016\lambda_{TC}, 0.095, 0.50 and 0.043 for the (a),(b),(c),(d), (f) models respectively and for model (e) s is divergent. These results are valid in the large N_{TC} and large \lambda_{TC} limit. We further derive the dependence of the S-parameter on the "string endpoint" mass of the techniquarks for the various models. We compute the masses of the low lying vector technimesons.Comment: 37 pages, 2 figures V2: 2 coerrections in sectionss 4 and 5, reference adde

Electroweak Symmetry Breaking from Gauge/Gravity Duality

We use the gauge/gravity duality to study a model of walking technicolor. The latter is a phenomenologically promising framework for dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking. A traditional problem for technicolor models has been the need to address gauge theories at strong coupling. Recent developments in gauge/gravity duality provide a powerful tool for handling this problem. First, we revisit previously considered holographic models of QCD-like technicolor from D-branes. In particular, we develop analytical understanding of earlier numerical computations of the Peskin-Takeuchi S-parameter. Then we apply this method to the investigation of a model of walking technicolor, obtained by embedding D7 - anti-D7 probe branes in a recently discovered type IIB background dual to walking behaviour. As a necessary step, we also show that there is an embedding of the techniflavor branes, that realizes chiral symmetry breaking. Finally, we show that the divergences that appear in the S-parameter can be removed by using holographic renormalization.Comment: 33 pages; minor clarification, references added, journal versio

Constraining holographic technicolor

We obtain a new bound on the value of Peskin-Takeuchi S parameter in a wide class of bottom-up holographic models for technicolor. Namely, we show that weakly coupled holographic description in these models implies S>>0.2. Our bound is in conflict with the results of electroweak precision measurements, so it strongly disfavors the models we consider.Comment: 8 pages; journal versio

Scalar Mesons in Holographic Walking Technicolor

We study the spectrum of scalar mesons in the holographic dual of walking technicolor, obtained by embedding D7 - anti-D7 probe branes in a certain type IIB background. The scalar mesons arise from fluctuations of the probe techniflavour branes and complement the (axial-)vector meson spectra that we investigated in earlier work. By explicitly finding the spectrum of scalar masses, we show that the nonsupersymmetric D7 - anti-D7 embedding is stable with respect to such fluctuations. Interestingly, it turns out that the mass splitting between the scalar and vector meson spectra is of subleading order in a small parameter expansion. It is noteworthy that this near-degeneracy may not be entirely due to a small amount of supersymmetry breaking and thus could indicate the presence of some other (approximate) symmetry in the problem.Comment: 25 pages; minor improvements, references added, journal versio

The decay constant of the holographic techni-dilaton and the 125 GeV boson

We critically discuss the possibility that the 125 GeV boson recently discovered at the LHC is the holographic techni-dilaton, a composite state emerging from a strongly-coupled model of electroweak symmetry breaking. This composite state differs from the SM for three main reasons. Its decay constant is in general larger than the electroweak scale, hence suppressing all the couplings to standard model particles with respect to an elementary Higgs boson, with the exception of the coupling to photons and gluons, which is expected to be larger than the standard-model equivalent. We discuss three classes of questions. Is it possible to lower the decay constant, by changing the geometry of the holographic model? Is it possible to lower the overall scale of the strong dynamics, by modifying the way in which electroweak symmetry breaking is implemented in the holographic model? Is there a clear indication in the data that production mechanisms other than gluon-gluon fusion have been observed, disfavoring models in which the holographic techni-dilaton has a large decay constant? We show that all of these questions are still open, given the present status of theoretical as well as phenomenological studies, and that at present the techni-dilaton hypothesis yields a fit to the data which is either as good as the elementary Higgs hypothesis, or marginally better, depending on what sets of data are used in the fit. We identify clear strategies for future work aimed at addressing these three classes of open questions. In the process, we also compute the complete scalar spectrum of the two-scalar truncation describing the GPPZ model, as well as the decay constant of the holographic techni-dilaton in this model.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. Two paragraphs of general comments added. Several references added. Version accepted for publicatio

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

Attractive Holographic Baryons

We propose a holographic model of baryon interactions based on non-supersymmetric D7-anti-D7 flavor branes embedded in the Klebanov-Strassler background. The baryons are D3-branes wrapping the 3-sphere of the conifold with M strings connecting the D3 and the flavor branes. Depending on the location of the latter there are two possibilities: the D3 either remains separate from the flavor branes or dissolves in them and becomes a flavor instanton. The leading order interaction between the baryons is a competition between the attraction and the repulsion due to the sigma and omega mesons. The lightest 0++ particle sigma is a pseudo-Goldstone boson associated with the spontaneous breaking of scale invariance. In a certain range of parameters it is parametrically lighter than any other massive state. As a result at large distances baryons attract each other. At short distances the potential admits a repulsive core due to an exchange of the omega vector meson. We discuss baryon coupling to glueballs, massive mesons and pions and point out the condition for the model to have a small binding energy.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figure

Calculable mass hierarchies and a light dilaton from gravity duals

In the context of gauge/gravity dualities, we calculate the scalar and tensor mass spectrum of the boundary theory defined by a special 8-scalar sigma-model in five dimensions, the background solutions of which include the 1-parameter family dual to the baryonic branch of the Klebanov-Strassler field theory. This provides an example of a strongly-coupled, multi-scale system that yields a parametrically light mass for one of the composite scalar particles: the dilaton. We briefly discuss the implications of these findings towards identifying a satisfactory solution to both the big and little hierarchy problems of the electro-weak theory