Transport properties of spacetime-filling branes

A model consisting of (d+1)-dimensional gravity coupled to spacetime filling charged branes is used to study the effects of backreaction. The charged black holes arising from this simple model reflect the non-linearity of the gauge field and are thermodynamically stable. By analysing fluctuations of the system we corroborate that at low values of the temperature (or large chemical potential) backreaction effects from the branes are dominant. We also provide a generalisation of the Iqbal and Liu strategy to calculate the DC conductivity, in which a mass term for the gauge field fluctuation is included. This mass term gives the value of the residue of the pole at zero frequency in the imaginary part of the AC conductivity, as well as the running of the DC conductivity with the bulk radius.Comment: 27 pages + appendix, 11 figures. v2: analysis of fluctuations improve

Bifundamental Superfluids from Holography

We study the holographic dual of a (2+1)-dimensional s-wave superfluid that breaks an abelian U(1) x U(1) global symmetry group to the diagonal U(1)_V. The model is inspired by Sen's tachyonic action, and the operator that condenses transforms in the bifundamental representation of the symmetry group. We focus on two configurations: the first one describes a marginal operator, and the phase diagram at finite temperature contains a first or a second order phase transition, depending on the parameters that determine the theory. In the second model the operator is relevant and the finite temperature transitions are always second order. In the latter case the conductivity for the current associated to the broken symmetry shows quasiparticle excitations at low temperatures, with mass given by the width of the superconducting gap. The suppression of spectral weight at low frequencies is also observed in the conductivity associated to the conserved symmetry, for which the DC value decreases as the temperature is reduced.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figures; v2: refs. added, plots and discussion improved, typos corrected, published versio

On actions for (entangling) surfaces and DCFTs

The dynamics of surfaces and interfaces describe many physical systems, including fluid membranes, entanglement entropy and the coupling of defects to quantum field theories. Based on the formulation of submanifold calculus developed by Carter, we introduce a new variational principle for (entangling) surfaces. This principle captures all diffeomorphism constraints on surface/interface actions and their associated spacetime stress tensor. The different couplings to the geometric tensors appearing in the surface action are interpreted in terms of response coefficients within elasticity theory. An example of a surface action with edges at the two-derivative level is studied, including both the parity-even and parity-odd sectors. Its conformally invariant counterpart restricts the type of conformal anomalies that can appear in two-dimensional submanifolds with boundaries. Analogously to hydrodynamics, it is shown that classification methods can be used to constrain the stress tensor of (entangling) surfaces at a given order in derivatives. This analysis reveals a purely geometric parity-odd contribution to the Young modulus of a thin elastic membrane. Extending this novel variational principle to BCFTs and DCFTs in curved spacetimes allows to obtain the Ward identities for diffeomorphism and Weyl transformations. In this context, we provide a formal derivation of the contact terms in the stress tensor and of the displacement operator for a broad class of actions.Comment: v2: 71pp, 1fig, comments and references added, typos fixed, to be published in JHE

Horizon universality and anomalous conductivities

We show that the value of chiral conductivities associated with anomalous transport is universal in a general class of strongly coupled quantum field theories. Our result applies to theories with no dynamical gluon fields and admitting a gravitational holographic dual in the large N limit. On the gravity side the result follows from near horizon universality of the fluctuation equations, similar to the holographic calculation of the shear viscosity.Comment: 13 page

BPS black holes from massive IIA on S6^6

We present BPS black hole solutions in a four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ supergravity with an abelian dyonic gauging of the universal hypermultiplet moduli space. This supergravity arises as the SU(3)-invariant subsector in the reduction of massive IIA supergravity on a six-sphere. The solutions are supported by non-constant scalar, vector and tensor fields and interpolate between a unique $\textrm{AdS}_{2} \,\times\, \textrm{H}^2$ geometry in the near-horizon region and the domain-wall DW$_{4}$ (four-dimensional) description of the D2-brane at the boundary. Some special solutions with charged AdS$_{4}$ or non-relativistic scaling behaviours in the ultraviolet are also presented.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures and 1 appendix. v2: New appendix, comments and references added, published versio

The open string membrane paradigm with external electromagnetic fields

We study the effective geometry felt by the fluctuations of open strings living on the worldvolume of probe D-branes in the presence of background electromagnetic fields. This is captured by an effective action consisting of a Maxwell term and a topological term, with the role of the metric played by the open string metric. Studying generalized Eddington-Finkelstein coordinates for stationary but non-static manifolds, we consider an open string membrane paradigm to obtain a generic formula for the DC transport coefficients, including the effect of external electromagnetic fields present on the worldvolume of the probe branes. We show that the previously studied singular shell, present when a critical electric field strength is turned on, behaves as a horizon for the open string degrees of freedom. The results of this analysis can be used to define a membrane paradigm for a very general class of spacetimes with non-diagonal metrics.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures, v2: Appendix added, minor correction

Three-dimensional super Yang-Mills with unquenched flavor

We construct analytically the gravity duals of three-dimensional, super Yang-Mills-type theories with $\mathcal N=1$ supersymmetry coupled to $N_f$ quark flavors. The backreaction of the quarks on the color degrees of freedom is included, and corresponds on the gravity side to the backreaction of $N_f$ D6-branes on the background of $N$ D2-branes. The D6-branes are smeared over the compact part of the geometry, which must be a six-dimensional nearly K\"ahler manifold in order to preserve supersymmetry. For massless quarks, the solutions flow in the IR to an $AdS_4$ fixed point dual to a Chern-Simons-matter theory. For light quarks the theories exhibit quasi-conformal dynamics (walking) at energy scales $m_q \ll E \ll \lambda N_f / N$, with $\lambda = g_{\text{YM}}^2 N$ the 't Hooft coupling.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure. v2 Minor editing, refs. added. Tallies with published versio