Electromagnetic Baryon Form Factors from Holographic QCD

In the holographic model of QCD suggested by Sakai and Sugimoto, baryons are chiral solitons sourced by D4 instantons in bulk of size 1/\sqrt{\lambda} with \lambda=g^2N_c. We quantize the D4 instanton semiclassically using \hbar=1/(N_c\lambda) and non-rigid constraints on the vector mesons. The holographic baryon is a small chiral bag in the holographic direction with a Cheshire cat smile. The vector-baryon interactions occur at the core boundary of the instanton in D4. They are strong and of order 1/\sqrt{\hbar}. To order \hbar^0 the electromagnetic current is entirely encoded on the core boundary and vector-meson dominated. To this order, the electromagnetic charge radius is of order \lambda^0. The meson contribution to the baryon magnetic moments sums identically to the core contribution. The proton and neutron magnetic moment are tied by a model independent relation similar to the one observed in the Skyrme model.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figure

Holographic d-wave superconductors

We construct top down models for holographic d-wave superfluids in which the order parameter is a charged spin two field in the bulk. Close to the transition temperature the condensed phase can be captured by a charged spin two field in an R-charged black hole background (downstairs picture) or equivalently by specific graviton perturbations of a spinning black brane (upstairs picture). We analyse the necessary conditions on the mass and the charge of the spin two field for a condensed phase to exist and we discuss the competition of the d-wave phase with other phases such as s-wave superfluids.Comment: 58 pages, 7 figure

Nucleon-Nucleon Potential from Holography

In the holographic model of QCD, baryons are chiral solitons sourced by D4 flavor instantons in bulk of size 1/\sqrt{\lambda} with \lambda=g^2*N_c. Using the ADHM construction we explicit the exact two-instanton solution in bulk. We use it to construct the core NN potential to order N_c/\lambda. The core sources meson fields to order \sqrt{N_c/\lambda} which are shown to contribute to the NN interaction to order N_c/\lambda. In holographic QCD, the NN interaction splits into a small core and a large cloud contribution in line with meson exchange models. The core part of the interaction is repulsive in the central, spin and tensor channels for instantons in the regular gauge. The cloud part of the interaction is dominated by omega exchange in the central channel, by pion exchange in the tensor channel and by axial-vector exchange in the spin and tensor channels. Vector meson exchanges are subdominant in all channels.Comment: 44 pages, 9 figure

Holographic Nambu Jona-Lasinio Interactions

NJL interactions are introduced into the D3/ probe D7 system using Witten's double trace operator prescription which includes the operator as a classical term in the effective potential. In the supersymmetric system they do not induce chiral symmetry breaking which we attribute to the flat effective potential with quark mass in the supersymmetric theory. If additional supersymmetry breaking is introduced then standard NJL behaviour is realized. In examples where chiral symmetry breaking is not preferred such as with a B field plus an IR cut off chiral condensation is triggered by the NJL interaction at a second order transition after a finite critical coupling. If the model already contains chiral symmetry breaking, for example in the B field case with no IR cut off, then the NJL interaction enhances the quark mass at all values of the NJL coupling. We also consider the system at finite temperature: the temperature discourages condensation but when combined with a magnetic field we find regions of parameter space where the NJL interaction triggers a first order chiral transition above a critical coupling.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Diffusion and Butterfly Velocity at Finite Density

We study diffusion and butterfly velocity ($v_B$) in two holographic models, linear axion and axion-dilaton model, with a momentum relaxation parameter ($\beta$) at finite density or chemical potential ($\mu$). Axion-dilaton model is particularly interesting since it shows linear-$T$-resistivity, which may have something to do with the universal bound of diffusion. At finite density, there are two diffusion constants $D_\pm$ describing the coupled diffusion of charge and energy. By computing $D_\pm$ exactly, we find that in the incoherent regime ($\beta/T \gg 1,\ \beta/\mu \gg 1$) $D_+$ is identified with the charge diffusion constant ($D_c$) and $D_-$ is identified with the energy diffusion constant ($D_e$). In the coherent regime, at very small density, $D_\pm$ are `maximally' mixed in the sense that $D_+(D_-)$ is identified with $D_e(D_c)$, which is opposite to the case in the incoherent regime. In the incoherent regime $D_e \sim C_- \hbar v_B^2 / k_B T$ where $C_- = 1/2$ or 1 so it is universal independently of $\beta$ and $\mu$. However, $D_c \sim C_+ \hbar v_B^2 / k_B T$ where $C_+ = 1$ or $\beta^2/16\pi^2 T^2$ so, in general, $C_+$ may not saturate to the lower bound in the incoherent regime, which suggests that the characteristic velocity for charge diffusion may not be the butterfly velocity. We find that the finite density does not affect the diffusion property at zero density in the incoherent regime.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, v2 minor edits and references adde

E, B, \mu, T Phase Structure of the D3/D7 Holographic Dual

The large N_c N=4 gauge theory with quenched N=2 quark matter displays chiral symmetry breaking in the presence of a magnetic field. We previously studied the temperature and chemical potential phase structure of this theory in the grand canonical ensemble - here we, in addition, include the effect of an electric field which acts to counter chiral symmetry breaking by disassociating mesons. We compute using the gravity dual based on the D3/probe-D7 brane system. The theory displays two transition at one of which chiral symmetry is restored. At the other transition density switches on, the mesons of the theory become unstable and a current forms, making it a conductor-insulator transition. Through the temperature, electric field, chemical potential volume (at fixed magnetic field parallel to the electric field) these transitions can coincide or separate at critical points, and be first order or second order. We map out this full phase structure which provides varied computable examples relevant to strongly coupled gauge theories and potentially condensed matter systems.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

On the Chaos Bound in Rotating Black Holes

We study out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) of rotating BTZ black holes using two different approaches: the elastic eikonal gravity approximation, and the Chern-Simons formulations of 3-dimensional gravity. Within both methods the OTOC is given as a sum of two contributions, corresponding to left and right moving modes. The contributions have different Lyapunov exponents, $\lambda_L^{\pm}=\frac{2\pi}{\beta}\frac{1}{1\mp \ell \Omega}$, where $\Omega$ is the angular velocity and $\ell$ is the AdS radius. Since $\lambda_L^{-} \leq \frac{2\pi}{\beta} \leq \lambda_L^{+}$, there is an apparent contradiction with the chaos bound. We discuss how the result can be made consistent with the chaos bound if one views $\beta_{\pm}=\beta(1\mp \ell \Omega)$ as the effective inverse temperatures of the left and right moving modes.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figures. v2: references added, typos corrected, and clarifications added to the discussion sectio

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