We consider situations where the renormalized geometric entropy, as defined by the AdS/CFT ansatz of Ryu and Takayanagi, shows extensive behavior in the volume of the entangled region. In general, any holographic geometry that is `capped' in the infrared region is a candidate for extensivity provided the growth of minimal surfaces saturates at the capping region, and the induced metric at the `cap' is non-degenerate. Extensivity is well-known to occur for highly thermalized states. In this note, we show that the holographic ansatz predicts the persistence of the extensivity down to vanishing temperature, for the particular case of conformal field theories in 2+1 dimensions with a magnetic field and/or electric charge condensates.
The aim of the present letter is to find the holographic entanglement entropy (HEE) in 2D holographic superconductors (HSC). Indeed, it is possible to compute the exact form of this entropy due to an advantage of approximate solutions inside normal and superconducting phases with backreactions. By making the UV and IR limits applied to the integrals, an approximate expression for HEE is obtained. In case the software cannot calculate minimal surface integrals analytically, it offers the possibility to proceed with a numerical evaluation of the corresponding terms. We'll understand how the area…
We clarify the relation between the recently formulated holographic renormalization group equation and Polchinski's exact renormalization group equation.
It is shown that the Holographic Renormalization Group can be formulated universally within Quantum Field Theory as (the quantization of) the Hamiltonian flow on the cotangent bundle to the space of gauge-invariant single-trace operators supplied with the canonical symplectic structure. The classical Hamiltonian dynamics is recovered in the large $N$ limit.
We discuss the holographic c-function and describe an algorithm for the practical computation of the changing central charge in arbitrary RG-flows. One example is worked out in detail. The renormalisation procedure of [hep-th/0112150]necessary to obtain the central charge is reviewed.
These are notes from my lectures at TASI 2015. The goal is to provide context for the study of strongly-correlated quantum many-body systems using quantum field theory, and possibly string theory.
We consider a noncritical holographic model constructed from an intersecting brane configuration D4/$\bar{\rm{D4}}$-D4 with an external magnetic field. We investigate the influences of this magnetic field on strongly coupled dynamics by the gauge/gravity correspondence.
The purpose of these lecture notes is to give a quick and introductory overview of holographic superconductors. Besides the actual description of the standard holographic superconductor, attention is paid to the motivations and the relation with the previous, non-holographic context.
From the perspective of AdS/CFT correspondence, we study the gravitational Chern-Simons term correction to the holographic entanglement entropy of CFT on the conformal boundary of asymptotically AdS$_3$ spacetime using the off-shell Euclidean path integral method. We show that, like the BTZ black hole entropy, the holographic entanglement entropy is indeed modified due to the gravitational Chern-Simons term although the bulk geometry does not change.
We review holographic renormalization for non-conformal branes using the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. We provide the tools required for the computation of the holographic dictionary, while we present some marginally new technical results regarding holographic renormalization for $Dp$-branes, $p<5$, for Einstein-Maxwell theory coupled to a dilaton. The computations are based on a recursive algorithm by Papadimitriou, that solves the radial Hamilton-Jacobi equation in the asymptotic boundary of the bulk. This paper is a short version of the Master thesis of the author written in 2014 at the Instit…
The holographic RG flow in AdS/CFT correspondence naturally defines a holographic scheme in which the central charge c and the beta function are related by a universal formula. We perform some checks of that formula and we compare it with quantum field theory expectations. We discuss alternative definitions of the c-function. In particular, we compare, for a particular supersymmetric flow, the holographic c-function with the central charge computed directly from the two-point function of the stress-energy tensor.
In this note we show how Ward identities may be derived for a quantum field theory dual of a string theory using the AdS/CFT correspondence. In particular associated with any gauge symmetry of the bulk supergravity theory there is a corresponding constraint equation. Writing this constraint in Hamilton-Jacobi form gives a generating functional for Ward identities in the dual QFT. We illustrate the method by considering various examples.
We discuss a derivation of the quadratic in fields part of action of bottom-up holographic models from some general properties of the large-Nc limit in QCD.
We give a prescription for calculating the holographic Weyl anomaly in arbitrary dimension within the framework based on the Hamilton-Jacobi equation proposed by de Boer, Verlinde and Verlinde. A few sample calculations are made and shown to reproduce the results that are obtained to this time with a different method. We further discuss continuum limits, and argue that the holographic renormalization group may describe the renormalized trajectory in the parameter space. We also clarify the relationship of the present formalism to the analysis carried out by Henningson and Skenderis.
We consider a holographic set-up where relativistic invariance is broken by a chemical potential, and a non-abelian internal symmetry is broken spontaneously. We use the tool of holographic renormalization in order to infer what can be learned purely by analytic boundary considerations. We find that the expected Ward identities are correctly reproduced. In particular, we obtain the identity which implies the non-commutation of a pair of broken charges, which leads to the presence of Goldstone bosons with quadratic dispersion relations.
We study fluctuations of a U(1) gauge field on the worldvolume of Nf probe D7-branes in the background of Nc black D3-branes with a finite baryon density. The choice of mode corresponds to vector mesons in the dual gauge theory whose mass and lifetime can be determined by a study of the quasinormal modes. The speed of propagation of these holographic mesons at large momenta is studied from the dispersion relations of the quasinormal modes of the system.
Using holographic subregion complexity, we study the confinement-deconfinement phase transition of quantum chromodynamics. In the model we consider here, we observe a connection between the potential energy of probe meson and the behavior of its complexity. Moreover, near the critical point, at which the phase transition takes place, our numerical calculations indicate that we need less information to specify a meson in the non-conformal vacuum than in the conformal one, despite the fact that the non-conformal vacuum has larger energy!
On the Lifshitz black brane geometry of an Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity, we holographically investigate electric DC conductivities and the role of impurity in a non-relativistic Lifshitz medium with two different charge carriers, impurity and Lifshitz matter. The conductivity carried by Lifshitz matter is proportional to the square of temperature, while that carried by impurity crucially depends on the bulk coupling parameter \g. For \g < -2, impurity at high temperature can change the electric property of the Lifshitz medium significantly so that the Lifshitz matter with impurity can show…
We argue that localized excitations in Minkowski space must be thought of as constrained states of holographic degrees of freedom. The Minkowski "vacuum" is in fact a density matrix of infinite entropy. The argument assumes that Minkowski space can be viewed as a limit of a space-time with non-vanishing cosmological constant, either positive or negative.
A novel technique is used to compute the bulk viscosity of high temperature holographic gauge theory plasmas with softly broken conformal symmetry. Working in a black hole background which corresponds to a non-trivial solution to the Navier-Stokes equation, and using a Ward identity for the trace of the stress-energy tensor, it is possible to obtain an analytic expression for the bulk viscosity. This can be used to verify the high temperature limit of a conjectured bound on the bulk viscosity for these theories. The bound is saturated when the conformal symmetry-breaking operator becomes margi…
In this note we remark that the butterfly effect can be used to diagnose the phase transition of superconductivity in a holographic framework. Specifically, we compute the butterfly velocity in a charged black hole background as well as anisotropic backgrounds with Q-lattice structure. In both cases we find its derivative to the temperature is discontinuous at critical points. We also propose that the butterfly velocity can signalize the occurrence of thermal phase transition in general holographic models.
We analyze the charge diffusion and conductivity in a Dp/Dq holographic setup that is dual to a supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in p+1 dimensions with N_f<< N_c flavour degrees of freedom at finite temperature and nonvanishing U(1) baryon number chemical potential. We provide a new derivation of the results that generalize the membrane paradigm to the present context. We perform a numerical analysis in the particular case of the D3/D7 flavor system. The results obtained support the validity of the Einstein relation at finite chemical potential.
We review the formalism of holographic renormalization. We start by discussing mathematical results on asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes. We then outline the general method of holographic renormalization. The method is illustrated by working all details in a simple example: a massive scalar field on anti-de Sitter spacetime. The discussion includes the derivation of the on-shell renormalized action, of holographic Ward identities, anomalies and RG equations, and the computation of renormalized one-, two- and four-point functions. We then discuss the application of the method to holograp…
We study holographic subregion complexity in a spatially anisotropic field theory, which expresses a confinement-deconfinement phase transition. Its holographic dual is a five-dimensional anisotropic holographic model characterized by a Van der Waals-like phase transition between small and large black holes. We propose a new interpretation from the informational perspective to determine the stable and unstable thermodynamically solutions. According to this proposal, the states which need (more) less information to be specified characterize the (un) stable solutions. We similarly offer an inter…
These are notes based on a series of lectures given at the KITP workshop "Quantum Criticality and the AdS/CFT Correspondence" in July, 2009. The goal of the lectures was to introduce condensed matter physicists to the AdS/CFT correspondence. Discussion of string theory and of supersymmetry is avoided to the extent possible.
In this note, we study the effects of non-zero magnetic field on the fermion spectral function coupled with a non-minimal coupling in the background of a dyonic $AdS_4$ black hole. The system can be reduced to a non magnetic one with the momentum being quantized into Landau levels $n$. By tuning the coupling parameter, we study its effect on the Fermi level and the quasiparticle width. We found an interesting scaling relation between the decay width and the coupling parameter, with a universal scaling exponent which is independent of the levels $n$.
We use the method of evaluating the decay rate in terms of the imaginary part of a probe brane action to study the holographic Schwinger effect. In the confining D3-branes case, we find that the Schwinger effect occurs at energy scales higher than the Kaluza-Klein mass, indicating the absence of such effect when the dual gauge field theory can be regarded as an 2+1 dimensional theory. This property is independent of the configuration of the probe brane. In the case of D3-branes with a B field dual to a noncommutative super Yang-Mills theory, we study how the decay rate is affected by the nonco…
In this work we revisit the problem of contributions of excited holographic states to the entanglement entropy in two-dimensional conformal field theories. Using the results of replica trick method we find three expressions for these contributions. First, we express the contribution of the excited states in terms of Aharonov invariants. It is shown that beside the Schwarzian, the one-point functions of descendants of energy-momentum also contribute. Given Schwarz-Christoffel map, the contributions to any order can be easily computed. The second expression relates the entanglement entropy of ex…
We discuss the computation of holographic entanglement entropy for interface conformal field theories. The fact that globally well defined Fefferman-Graham coordinates are difficult to construct makes the regularization of the holographic theory challenging. We introduce a simple new cut-off procedure, which we call "double cut-off" regularization. We test the new cut-off procedure by comparing the results for holographic entanglement entropies using other cut-off procedures and find agreement. We also study three dimensional conformal field theories with a two dimensional interface. In that c…
Probe branes with finite worldvolume electric flux in the background created by a stack of Dp branes describe holographically strongly interacting fundamental matter at finite density. We identify two quantities whose leading low temperature behavior is independent of the dimensionality of the probe branes: specific heat and DC conductivity. This behavior can be inferred from the dynamics of the fundamental strings which provide a good description of the probe branes in the regime of low temperatures and finite densities. We also comment on the speed of sound on the branes and the temperature …
We study the thermodynamics and the jet quenching parameter of a black hole solution dual to a SQCD-like plasma which includes the backreaction of fundamental flavors. The free energy is calculated in several ways, including some recently proposed holographic renormalization prescriptions. The validity of the latter is confirmed by the consistency with the other methods. The resulting thermodynamic properties are similar to the Little String Theory ones: the temperature is fixed at the Hagedorn value and the free energy is vanishing. Finally, an accurate analysis of the relevant string configu…
We present an analytic treatment near the phase transition for the critical temperature of (3+1)-dimensional holographic superconductors in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity with backreaction. We find that the backreaction makes the critical temperature of the superconductor decrease and condensation harder. This is consistent with previous numerical results.
We study five-dimensional gravity models with non-vanishing background scalar fields which are dual to non-conformal boundary field theories. We develop a procedure to decouple the graviton fluctuations from the scalar ones and apply it to the simplest case of one scalar field. The quadratic action for the decoupled scalar fluctuations has a very simple form and can be used to compute two-point functions. We perform this computation for the two examples of background RG flow recently considered by DeWolfe and Freedman and find physically reasonable results.
We develop a general approach to simplify the derivation of the holographic Weyl anomaly. As an application, we derive the holographic Weyl anomaly from general higher derivative gravity in asymptotically $AdS_{5}$ and $AdS_{7}$. Interestingly, to derive all the central charges of 4d and 6d CFTs, we make no use of equations of motion. Following Myers' idea, we propose a formula of holographic entanglement entropy for higher derivative gravity in asymptotically $AdS_5$. Applying this formula, we obtain the correct universal term of entanglement entropy for 4d CFTs. It turns out that our formula…
These notes are loosely based on lectures given at the CERN Winter School on Supergravity, Strings and Gauge theories, February 2009 and at the IPM String School in Tehran, April 2009. I have focused on a few concrete topics and also on addressing questions that have arisen repeatedly. Background condensed matter physics material is included as motivation and easy reference for the high energy physics community. The discussion of holographic techniques progresses from equilibrium, to transport and to superconductivity.
We study the fermionic sector of a probe D8-brane in the supergravity background made of D4-branes compactified on a circle with supersymmetry broken explicitly by the boundary conditions. At low energies the dual field theory is effectively four-dimensional and has proved surprisingly successful in recovering qualitative and quantitative properties of QCD. We investigate fluctuations of the fermionic fields on the probe D8-brane and interpret these as mesinos (fermionic superpartners of mesons). We demonstrate that the masses of these modes are comparable to meson masses and show that their i…
We clarify the relation between the Noether charge associated to an arbitrary vector field and the equations of motions by revisiting Wald formalism. For a time-like Killing vector, aspects of the Noether charge suggest that it is dual to the heat current in the boundary for general holographic theories. For a space-like Killing vector, we interpret the Noether charge (at the transverse direction) as shear stress of the dual fluid so we can compute the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density by simply using the infrared data on the black hole event horizon. We test the new method for Einst…
Recently Verlinde proposed that gravity is an entropic force caused by information changes when a material body moves away from the holographic screen. In this note we apply this argument to brane cosmology, and show that the cosmological equation can be derived from this holographic scenario.
We study the coupled equations describing fluctuations of scalars and the metric about background solutions of N=8 gauged supergravity which are dual to boundary field theories with renormalization group flow. For the case of a kink solution with a single varying scalar, we develop a procedure to decouple the equations, and we solve them in particular examples. However, difficulties occur in the calculation of correlation functions from the fluctuations, presumably because the AdS/CFT correspondence has not yet been properly implemented in the coupled scalar-gravity sector. Some new examples o…
We present a simple derivation of an upper bound on the average size of the true vacuum bubbles at the end of inflation, in models of extended inflation type. The derivation uses the inequality that the total energy inside a given volume must be less than its linear dimensions. The above bound is the same as that obtained earlier, by applying the holographic principle according to Fischler-Susskind prescription. Such a bound leads to a lower bound on the denisty fluctuations.
It was argued recently that the holographic higher spin theory features non-local interactions. We further elaborate on these results using the Mellin representation. The main difficulty previously encountered on this way is that the Mellin amplitude for the free theory correlator is ill-defined. To resolve this problem, instead of literally applying the standard definition, we propose to define this amplitude by linearity using decompositions, where each term has the associated Mellin amplitude well-defined. Up to a sign, the resulting amplitude is equal to the Mellin amplitude for the singul…
We discuss the field theory interpretation (via holographic duality) of some recently-discovered string theory solutions with varying flux, focusing on four dimensional theories with N=2 supersymmetry and with N=1 supersymmetry which arise as the near-horizon limits of "fractional D3-branes". We argue that in the N=2 case the best interpretation of the varying flux in field theory is via a Higgs mechanism reducing the rank of the gauge group, and that there is no need to invoke a duality to explain the varying flux in this case. We discuss why a similar interpretation does not seem to apply to…
We propose a new holographic C-function for the accelerating universe defined in the stringy frame motivated mainly by the fact that the number of degrees of freedom should be infinite for a physical system of infinite size. This is the generalization of Strominger's recent proposal of the holographic C-function to the asymptotically non-de Sitter universe. We find that the corresponding C-theorem holds true if the universe accelerates toward the weak coupling regime driven by the exponential dilaton potential. It also holds in other simple cases.
The volume inside a Ryu-Takayanagi surface has been conjectured to be related to the complexity of subregions of the boundary field theory. Here, we study the behaviour of this volume analytically, when the entangling surface has a strip geometry. We perform systematic expansions in the low and high temperature regimes for AdS-Schwarzschild and RN-AdS black holes. In the latter regime, we point out spurious divergences that might occur due to the limitations of a near horizon expansion. A similar analysis is performed for extremal black holes, and at large charge, we find that there might be s…
In this note, we have addressed various issues on zero temperature holographic superfluids. First, inspired by our numerical evidence for the equality between the superfluid density and particle density, we provide an elegant analytic proof for this equality by a boost trick. Second, using not only the frequency domain analysis but also the time domain analysis from numerical relativity, we identify the hydrodynamic normal modes and calculate out the sound speed, which is shown to increase with the chemical potential and saturate to the value predicted by the conformal field theory in the larg…
Few facts are known about the entanglement entropy for disconnected regions in quantum field theory. We study here the property of extensivity of the mutual information, which holds for free massless fermions in two dimensions. We uncover the structure of the entropy function in the extensive case, and find an interesting connection with the renormalization group irreversibility. The solution is a function on space-time regions which complies with all the known requirements a relativistic entropy function has to satisfy. We show that the holographic ansatz of Ryu and Takayanagi, the free scala…
We investigate systematically the effect of the nonlinear correction to the usual Maxwell electrodynamics on the holographic dual models in the backgrounds of AdS black hole and AdS soliton. Considering three types of typical nonlinear electrodynamics, we observe that in the black hole background the higher nonlinear electrodynamics correction makes the condensation harder to form and changes the expected relation in the gap frequency, which is similar to that caused by the curvature correction. However, in strong contrast to the influence of the curvature correction, we find that in the AdS s…
We employ the matching method to analytically investigate the holographic superconductors with Lifshitz scaling in an external magnetic field. We discuss systematically the restricted conditions for the matching method and find that this analytic method is not always powerful to explore the effect of external magnetic field on the holographic superconductors unless the matching point is chosen in an appropriate range and the dynamical exponent $z$ satisfies the relation $z=d-1$ or $z=d-2$. From the analytic treatment, we observe that Lifshitz scaling can hinder the condensation to be formed, w…
A great deal of progress has been recently made in the study of holography for non-conformal branes. Considering the near-horizon limit of backgrounds generated by such branes, we discuss the holographic renormalization of probe D-branes in these geometries. More specifically, we discuss in some detail systems with a codimension-one defect. For this class of systems, the mode which describes the probe branes wrapping a maximal 2-sphere in the transverse space behaves like a free massive scalar propagating in a higher-dimensional (asymptotically) AdS_{q+1}-space. The counterterms needed are the…
Over the last few years a certain class of dark-energy models decaying inversely proportional to the square of the horizon distance emerged on the basis either of Heisenberg uncertainty relations or of the uncertainty relation between the four-volume and the cosmological constant. The very nature of these dark energies is understood to be the same, namely it is the energy of background space/metric fluctuations. Putting together these uncertainty relations one finds that the model of random fluctuations of the background metric is favored over the holographic one.
This is a long-overdue companion paper to arXiv:1512.00073. We study the relation between $sl(3|2)$ Chern-Simons supergravity on AdS$_3$ and two-dimensional CFT's with $\mathcal{N}=2$ super-$\mathcal{W}_3$ symmetry. Specifically, we carry out a complete analysis of asymptotic symmetries in a basis that makes the superconformal structure transparent, allowing us to establish the precise dictionary between currents and transformation parameters in the bulk and their boundary counterparts. We also discuss the incorporation of sources and display in full detail the corresponding holographic Ward i…
Note on higher spins and holographic symmetry algebra
National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER)（印度科学教育与研究国立研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴巴国立研究所）；Indian Institute of Technology Ropar（印度技术学院罗帕尔分校）
We investigate properties of holographic strange metals in $p+2$-dimensions, generalizing the analysis performed in arXiv:0912.1061. The bulk spacetime is $p+2$-dimensional Lifshitz black hole, while the role of charge carriers is played by probe D-branes. We mainly focus on massless charge carriers, where most of the results can be obtained analytically. We obtain exact results for the free energy and calculate the entropy density, the heat capacity as well as the speed of sound at low temperature. We obtain the DC conductivity and DC Hall conductivity and find that the DC conductivity takes …
