13 research outputs found
Making predictions in the multiverse
I describe reasons to think we are living in an eternally inflating
multiverse where the observable "constants" of nature vary from place to place.
The major obstacle to making predictions in this context is that we must
regulate the infinities of eternal inflation. I review a number of proposed
regulators, or measures. Recent work has ruled out a number of measures by
showing that they conflict with observation, and focused attention on a few
proposals. Further, several different measures have been shown to be
equivalent. I describe some of the many nontrivial tests these measures will
face as we learn more from theory, experiment, and observation.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures; invited review for Classical and Quantum
Gravity; v2: references improve
Fractionalization of holographic Fermi surfaces
Zero temperature states of matter are holographically described by a
spacetime with an asymptotic electric flux. This flux can be sourced either by
explicit charged matter fields in the bulk, by an extremal black hole horizon,
or by a combination of the two. We refer to these as mesonic, fully
fractionalized and partially fractionalized phases of matter, respectively. By
coupling a charged fluid of fermions to an asymptotically AdS_4
Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory, we exhibit quantum phase transitions between
all three of these phases. The onset of fractionalization can be either a first
order or continuous phase transition. In the latter case, at the quantum
critical point the theory displays an emergent Lifshitz scaling symmetry in the
IR.Comment: 1+24 pages. 7 figure
Spectral function of the supersymmetry current
We continue our study of the retarded Green's function of the universal
fermionic supersymmetry current ("supercurrent") for the most general class of
d=3 N=2 SCFTs with D=10 or D=11 supergravity duals by studying the propagation
of the Dirac gravitino in the electrically charged AdS-Reissner-Nordstr\"om
black-brane background of N=2 minimal gauged supergravity in D=4. We expand
upon results presented in a companion paper, including the absence of a Fermi
surface and the appearance of a soft power-law gap at zero temperature. We also
present the analytic solution of the gravitino equation in the AdS_2 X R^2
background which arises as the near-horizon limit at zero temperature. In
addition we determine the quasinormal mode spectrum.Comment: 65 pages, 6 Figs; version published in journa
Doping the holographic Mott insulator
Mott insulators form because of strong electron repulsions, being at the
heart of strongly correlated electron physics. Conventionally these are
understood as classical "traffic jams" of electrons described by a short-ranged
entangled product ground state. Exploiting the holographic duality, which maps
the physics of densely entangled matter onto gravitational black hole physics,
we show how Mott-insulators can be constructed departing from entangled
non-Fermi liquid metallic states, such as the strange metals found in cuprate
superconductors. These "entangled Mott insulators" have traits in common with
the "classical" Mott insulators, such as the formation of Mott gap in the
optical conductivity, super-exchange-like interactions, and form "stripes" when
doped. They also exhibit new properties: the ordering wave vectors are detached
from the number of electrons in the unit cell, and the DC resistivity diverges
algebraically instead of exponentially as function of temperature. These
results may shed light on the mysterious ordering phenomena observed in
underdoped cuprates.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures. Accepted in Nature Physic