This thesis summarizes the recent developments on the study of five-dimensional
gauged supergravity with higher derivative terms, emphasizing in particular the ap-
plication to understanding the hydrodynamic properties of gauge theory plasma via
the AdS/CFT correspondence. We first review how the ungauged and gauged five-
dimensional supergravity actions with higher derivative terms can be constructed
using the off-shell superconformal formalism. Then we relate the gauged supergrav-
ity to four-dimensional gauge theory using the AdS/CFT correspondence and extract
the physical quantities associated with gauge theory plasma from the dual classical
supergravity computations. We put a particular emphasis on the discussion of the
conjectured lower bound for the shear viscosity over entropy density ratio proposed
by Kovtun, Son and Starinets, and discuss how higher derivative terms in supergrav-
ity and the introduction of chemical potential for the R-charge affect this bound.PHDPhysicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93983/1/hanaki_1.pd
