Supersymmetric hydrodynamics from the AdS/CFT correspondence

We compute holographically the dispersion relation for a hydrodynamic mode of fluctuation (the phonino) of the density of supersymmetry current in N = 4 SYM at strong coupling. The mode appears as a pole at low frequency and momentum in the correlator of supercurrents. It has a wave-like propagation, and we find its speed and coefficient of attenuation.Comment: 17 page

Flavor corrections to the entanglement entropy

We consider the holographic entanglement entropy in N=4 SYM coupled to massive flavor degrees of freedom. The flavors are introduced by putting D7 branes in AdS_5. The resulting geometry including the backreaction of the branes is known in a perturbation expansion in the ratio N_f/N_c. We consider the expansion to first order, and compute the entanglement entropy of a region of the boundary. We consider two different cases for the geometry of the region: a slab and a ball. We find analytic solutions for the minimal surfaces in the bulk whose area gives the entropy, and analyze the structure of the UV divergence and the dependence on the masses. Our results confirm the general structure that was predicted by free field theory calculations, but with coefficients that depend on the coupling.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, references adde

Super-Chern-Simons Theory as Superstring Theory

Superstrings and topological strings with supermanifolds as target space play a central role in the recent developments in string theory. Nevertheless the rules for higher-genus computations are still unclear or guessed in analogy with bosonic and fermionic strings. Here we present a common geometrical setting to develop systematically the prescription for amplitude computations. The geometrical origin of these difficulties is the theory of integration of superforms. We provide a translation between the theory of supermanifolds and topological strings with supertarget space. We show how in this formulation one can naturally construct picture changing operators to be inserted in the correlation functions to soak up the zero modes of commuting ghost and we derive the amplitude prescriptions from the coupling with an extended topological gravity on the worldsheet. As an application we consider a simple model on R^(3|2) leading to super-Chern-Simons theory.Comment: hravmac, 50p

Circuit Complexity and 2D Bosonisation

We consider the circuit complexity of free bosons, or equivalently free fermions, in 1+1 dimensions. Motivated by the results of [1] and [2, 3] who found different behavior in the complexity of free bosons and fermions, in any dimension, we consider the 1+1 dimensional case where, thanks to the bosonisation equivalence, we can consider the same state from both the bosonic and the fermionic perspectives. In this way the discrepancy can be attributed to a different choice of the set of gates allowed in the circuit. We study the effect in two classes of states: i) bosonic-coherent / fermionic-gaussian states; ii) states that are both bosonic- and fermionic-gaussian. We consider the complexity relative to the ground state. In the first class, the different results can be reconciled admitting a mode-dependent cost function in one of the descriptions. The differences in the second class are more important, in terms of the cutoff-dependence and the overall behavior of the complexity.Comment: Fix typos and add reference

Phenomenological characterisation of semi-holographic non-Fermi liquids

We analyse some phenomenological implications of the most general semi-holographic models for non-Fermi liquids that have emerged with inputs from the holographic correspondence. We find generalizations of Landau-Silin equations with few parameters governing thermodynamics, low energy response and collective excitations. We show that even when there is a Fermi surface with well-defined quasi-particle excitations, the collective excitations can behave very differently from Landau's theory.Comment: 5+5 pages, 3 figures, expanded supplementary material, published versio

Diffusion constant of supercharge density in N=4 SYM at finite chemical potential

We compute holographically the diffusion constant of supercharges in N=4 SYM at finite chemical potential for the R-charge, by solving the equations of motion for the transverse mode of the gravitino in the STU black hole in 5 dimensions. We consider the case of one charge and three charges, and we present analytical solutions for small values of the charges and numerical solutions for arbitrary values. We compare our results with other known results in 4 dimensions.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures; v2: typos correcte