Self-bound dense objects in holographic QCD

We study a self-bound dense object in the hard wall model. We consider a spherically symmetric dense object which is characterized by its radial density distribution and non-uniform but spherically symmetric chiral condensate. For this we analytically solve the partial differential equations in the hard wall model and read off the radial coordinate dependence of the density and chiral condensate according to the AdS/CFT correspondence. We then attempt to describe nucleon density profiles of a few nuclei within our framework and observe that the confinement scale changes from a free nucleon to a nucleus. We briefly discuss how to include the effect of higher dimensional operator into our study. We finally comment on possible extensions of our work.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, figures replaced, minor revision, to appear in JHE

Diffractive Higgs Production by AdS Pomeron Fusion

The double diffractive Higgs production at central rapidity is formulated in terms of the fusion of two AdS gravitons/Pomerons first introduced by Brower, Polchinski, Strassler and Tan in elastic scattering. Here we propose a simple self-consistent holographic framework capable of providing phenomenologically compelling estimates of diffractive cross sections at the LHC. As in the traditional weak coupling approach, we anticipate that several phenomenological parameters must be tested and calibrated through factorization for a self-consistent description of other diffractive process such as total cross sections, deep inelastic scattering and heavy quark production in the central region.Comment: 53 pages, 8 figure

Consistent reduction of charged D3-D7 systems

We provide a consistent reduction to five dimensions of the system of D3-branes at Calabi-Yau singularities coupled to D7-branes with world-volume gauge flux. The D3-branes source the dual to would-be conformal quiver theories. The D7-branes, which are homogeneously distributed in their transverse directions, are dual to massless matter in the fundamental representation at finite (baryon) density. We provide the five-dimensional action and equations of motion, and discuss a few sub-truncations. The reduction can be used in the study of transport properties and stability of D3-D7 charged systems.Comment: 23 pages. v2: references added and minor change

Odderon in baryon-baryon scattering from the AdS/CFT correspondence

Based on the AdS/CFT correspondence, we present a holographic description of various C-odd exchanges in high energy baryon-baryon and baryon-antibaryon scattering, and calculate their respective contributions to the difference in the total cross sections. We predict that, due to the warp factor of AdS_5, the total cross section in pp collisions is larger than in p\bar{p} collisions at asymptotically high energies.Comment: 23 pages, v2: minor changes, to be published in JHE

Electrified plasma in AdS/CFT correspondence

We construct new gravity backgrounds holographic dual to neutral plasma with U(1) global symmetry in the presence of constant electric field, considering its full back-reactions to the metric. As the electric field and the induced current cause a net energy in-flow to the system, the plasma is continually heated up and the corresponding gravity solution has an expanding horizon. After proposing a consistent late-time expansion scheme, we present analytic solutions in the scheme up to next-leading order, and our solutions are new time-dependent solutions of 5D asymptotic AdS Einstein-Maxwell(-Chern-Simons) theory. To extract dual CFT stress tensor and U(1) current from the solutions, we perform a rigorous holographic renormalization of Einstein-Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory including full back-reactions, which can in itself be an interesting addition to literatures. As by-products, we obtain interesting modifications of energy-momentum/current Ward identities due to the U(1) symmetry and its triangle anomaly.Comment: 27 pages, no figure, v3, minor typos fixed, matches with published versio

Holographic chiral magnetic spiral

We study the ground state of baryonic/axial matter at zero temperature chiral-symmetry broken phase under a large magnetic field, in the framework of holographic QCD by Sakai-Sugimoto. Our study is motivated by a recent proposal of chiral magnetic spiral phase that has been argued to be favored against previously studied phase of homogeneous distribution of axial/baryonic currents in terms of meson super-currents dictated by triangle anomalies in QCD. Our results provide an existence proof of chiral magnetic spiral in strong coupling regime via holography, at least for large axial chemical potentials, whereas we don't find the phenomenon in the case of purely baryonic chemical potential.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figure

Modulated Instability in Five-Dimensional U(1) Charged AdS Black Hole with R**2-term

We study the effect of R**2 term to the modulated instability in the U(1) charged black hole in five-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space-time. We consider the first-order corrections of R**2 term to the background and the linear order perturbations in the equations of motion. From the analysis, we clarify the effect of R**2 term in the modulated instability, and conclude that fluctuations are stable in the whole bulk in the range of values the coefficient of R**2 term can take.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figures; (v4) Published version in JHE

Nuclear matter to strange matter transition in holographic QCD

We construct a simple holographic QCD model to study nuclear matter to strange matter transition. The interaction of dense medium and hadrons is taken care of by imposing the force balancing condition for stable D4/D6/D6 configuration. By considering the intermediate and light flavor branes interacting with baryon vertex homogeneously distributed along R^3 space and requesting the energy minimization, we find that there is a well defined transition density as a function of current quark mass. We also find that as density goes up very high, intermediate (or heavy) and light quarks populate equally as expected from the Pauli principle. In this sense, the effect of the Pauli principle is realized as dynamics of D-branes.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure

Completing the framework of AdS/QCD: h_1/b_1 mesons and excited omega/rho's

We extend the "hard wall" gravity dual of QCD by including tensor fields b_{MN} that correspond to the QCD quark bilinear operators qbar sigma^{mu nu} q. These fields give rise to a spectrum of states which include the h_1 and b_1 mesons, as well as a tower of excited omega/rho meson states. We also identify the lowest-dimension term which leads to mixing between the new rho states and the usual tower of rho mesons when chiral symmetry is broken.Comment: 37 pages, uses jheppub.sty; v2: Added reference and revised discussion of interaction term

Baryonic Popcorn

In the large N limit cold dense nuclear matter must be in a lattice phase. This applies also to holographic models of hadron physics. In a class of such models, like the generalized Sakai-Sugimoto model, baryons take the form of instantons of the effective flavor gauge theory that resides on probe flavor branes. In this paper we study the phase structure of baryonic crystals by analyzing discrete periodic configurations of such instantons. We find that instanton configurations exhibit a series of "popcorn" transitions upon increasing the density. Through these transitions normal (3D) lattices expand into the transverse dimension, eventually becoming a higher dimensional (4D) multi-layer lattice at large densities. We consider 3D lattices of zero size instantons as well as 1D periodic chains of finite size instantons, which serve as toy models of the full holographic systems. In particular, for the finite-size case we determine solutions of the corresponding ADHM equations for both a straight chain and for a 2D zigzag configuration where instantons pop up into the holographic dimension. At low density the system takes the form of an "abelian anti-ferromagnetic" straight periodic chain. Above a critical density there is a second order phase transition into a zigzag structure. An even higher density yields a rich phase space characterized by the formation of multi-layer zigzag structures. The finite size of the lattices in the transverse dimension is a signal of an emerging Fermi sea of quarks. We thus propose that the popcorn transitions indicate the onset of the "quarkyonic" phase of the cold dense nuclear matter.Comment: v3, 80 pages, 18 figures, footnotes 5 and 7 added, version to appear in the JHE