614 research outputs found
Holographic duals of SQCD models in low dimensions
We obtain gravity duals to supersymmetric gauge theories in two and three
spacetime dimensions with unquenched flavor. The supergravity solutions are
generated by a set of color branes wrapping a compact cycle in a Calabi-Yau
threefold, together with another set of flavor branes extended along the
directions orthogonal to the cycle wrapped by the color branes. We construct
supergravity backgrounds which include the backreaction induced by a smeared
set of flavor branes, which act as delocalized dynamical sources of the
different supergravity fields.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures;v2: typos correcte
D3-D7 Quark-Gluon Plasmas at Finite Baryon Density
We present the string dual to SU(Nc) N=4 SYM, coupled to Nf massless
fundamental flavors, at finite temperature and baryon density. The solution is
determined by two dimensionless parameters, both depending on the 't Hooft
coupling at the scale set by the temperature T:
, weighting the backreaction of the flavor
fields and , where is the
baryon density. For small values of these two parameters the solution is given
analytically up to second order. We study the thermodynamics of the system in
the canonical and grand-canonical ensembles. We then analyze the energy loss of
partons moving through the plasma, computing the jet quenching parameter and
studying its dependence on the baryon density. Finally, we analyze certain
"optical" properties of the plasma. The whole setup is generalized to non
abelian strongly coupled plasmas engineered on D3-D7 systems with D3-branes
placed at the tip of a generic singular Calabi-Yau cone. In all the cases,
fundamental matter fields are introduced by means of homogeneously smeared
D7-branes and the flavor symmetry group is thus a product of abelian factors.Comment: 27 pages; v2: 29 pages, 1 (new) figure, new section 4.4 on optical
properties, references, comments added; v3: eq. (3.19), comments and a
reference adde
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
Strings on pp-waves and Hadrons in (softly broken) N=1 gauge theories
We study the Penrose limit of Type IIB duals of softly broken N=1 SU(N) gauge
theories in four dimensions, obtained as deformations of the Maldacena-Nunez
and Klebanov-Strassler backgrounds. We extract the string spectrum on the
resulting pp-wave backgrounds and discuss some properties of the conjectured
dual gauge theory hadrons, the so called "Annulons". The string zero-point
energy on the light-cone is nontrivial, due to the loss of linearly realized
worldsheet supersymmetry, and negative, even in the unbroken supersymmetric
case. This causes the appearance of non-perturbative corrections to the
hadronic mass spectrum. We briefly discuss the thermodynamic behavior of these
string models, calculating the corresponding Hagedorn temperatures.Comment: 20 page
Wilson Loop, Regge Trajectory and Hadron Masses in a Yang-Mills Theory from Semiclassical Strings
We compute the one-loop string corrections to the Wilson loop, glueball Regge
trajectory and stringy hadron masses in the Witten model of non supersymmetric,
large-N Yang-Mills theory. The classical string configurations corresponding to
the above field theory objects are respectively: open straight strings, folded
closed spinning strings, and strings orbiting in the internal part of the
supergravity background. For the rectangular Wilson loop we show that besides
the standard Luescher term, string corrections provide a rescaling of the field
theory string tension. The one-loop corrections to the linear glueball Regge
trajectories render them nonlinear with a positive intercept, as in the
experimental soft Pomeron trajectory. Strings orbiting in the internal space
predict a spectrum of hadronic-like states charged under global flavor
symmetries which falls in the same universality class of other confining
models.Comment: 52 pages, latex 3 times, v3: references adde
Holographic Duals of Quark Gluon Plasmas with Unquenched Flavors
We review the construction of gravitational solutions holographically dual to
N=1 quiver gauge theories with dynamical flavor multiplets. We focus on the
D3-D7 construction and consider the finite temperature, finite quark chemical
potential case where there is a charged black hole in the dual solution.
Discussed physical outputs of the model include its thermodynamics (with
susceptibilities) and general hydrodynamic properties.Comment: Lecture presented at the Workshop "AdS/CFT and Novel Approaches to
Hadron and Heavy Ion Physics", Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics
(KITPC), Beijing, China, 13 October 2010. Review article to be published in
Communications in Theoretical Physics. 27 pages, 2 figure
Glueball Spectra of SQCD-like Theories
We study the spectrum of scalar glueballs in SQCD-like theories whose gravity
description is in terms of Nc D5 color branes wrapped on an S^2 inside a
CY3-fold, and Nf backreacting D5 flavor branes wrapped on a non-compact
two-cycle inside the same CY3-fold. We show that there exists a consistent
truncation of the ten-dimensional Type IIB supergravity system to a
five-dimensional non-linear sigma model consisting of four scalars coupled to
gravity. Studying fluctuations of the scalars as well as the metric around
particular backgrounds allows us to compute their spectra. A few different
backgrounds share the same qualitative features, namely that the mass of the
lightest scalar glueball increases as the number of flavors is increased, until
one reaches the point Nf = 2 Nc after which the opposite behaviour is obtained.
We show that the five-dimensional non-linear sigma model obeys Seiberg duality,
and demonstrate this explicitly for the spectra of a class of backgrounds that
are Seiberg dual to themselves.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures. Discussion of field theory added. Version to be
published in JHEP
Hydrodynamics of fundamental matter
First and second order transport coefficients are calculated for the strongly
coupled N=4 SYM plasma coupled to massless fundamental matter in the Veneziano
limit. The results, including among others the value of the bulk viscosity and
some relaxation times, are presented at next-to-leading order in the flavor
contribution. The bulk viscosity is found to saturate Buchel's bound. This
result is also captured by an effective single-scalar five-dimensional
holographic dual in the Chamblin-Reall class and it is suggested to hold, in
the limit of small deformations, for generic plasmas with gravity duals,
whenever the leading conformality breaking effects are driven by marginally
(ir)relevant operators. This proposal is then extended to other relations for
hydrodynamic coefficients, which are conjectured to be universal for every
non-conformal plasma with a dual Chamblin-Reall-like description. Our analysis
extends to any strongly coupled gauge theory describing the low energy dynamics
of Nc>>1 D3-branes at the tip of a generic Calabi-Yau cone. The fundamental
fields are added by means of 1<<Nf<<Nc homogeneously smeared D7-branes.Comment: 24 pages. V2: Important improvements in the discussion of the results
in section 1. References adde
Back-reaction of Non-supersymmetric Probes: Phase Transition and Stability
We consider back-reaction by non-supersymmetric D7/anti-D7 probe branes in
the Kuperstein-Sonnenschein model at finite temperature. Using the smearing
technique, we obtain an analytical solution for the back-reacted background to
leading order in N_f/N_c. This back-reaction explicitly breaks the conformal
invariance and introduces a dimension 6 operator in the dual field theory which
is an irrelevant deformation of the original conformal field theory. We further
probe this back-reacted background by introducing an additional set of probe
brane/anti-brane. This additional probe sector undergoes a chiral phase
transition at finite temperature, which is absent when the back-reaction
vanishes. We investigate the corresponding phase diagram and the thermodynamics
associated with this phase transition. We also argue that additional probes do
not suffer from any instability caused by the back-reaction, which suggests
that this system is stable beyond the probe limit.Comment: 56 pages, 8 figures. References updated, improved discussion on
dimension eight operato
Probes on D3-D7 Quark-Gluon Plasmas
We study the holographic dual model of quenched flavors immersed in a
quark-gluon plasma with massless dynamical quarks in the Veneziano limit. This
is modeled by embedding a probe D7 brane in a background where the backreaction
of massless D7 branes has been taken into account. The background, and hence
the effects, are perturbative in the Veneziano parameter N_f/N_c, therefore
giving small shifts of all magnitudes like the constituent mass, the quark
condensate, and several transport coefficients. We provide qualitative results
for the effect of flavor degrees of freedom on the probes. For example, the
meson melting temperature is enhanced, while the screening length is
diminished. The drag force is also enhanced.Comment: 31 pages, 17 figure
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