It has been conjectured, on the basis of the gauge-gravity duality, that the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density should be universally bounded from below by 1/ 4 pi in units of the Planck constant divided by the Boltzmann constant. Here, we prove the bound for any ghost-free extension of Einstein gravity and the field-theory dual thereof. Our proof is based on the fact that, for such an extension, any gravitational coupling can only increase from its Einstein value. Therefore, since the shear viscosity is a particular gravitational coupling, it is minimal for Einstein gravity. Meanwhile, we show that the entropy density can always be calibrated to its Einstein value. Our general principles are demonstrated for a pair of specific models, one with ghosts and one without.
We review the progress in the holographic calculation of shear viscosity for strongly coupled field theories. We focus on the calculation of shear viscosity from the effective coupling of transverse gravitons and present some explicit examples.
We study the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density for various holographic superfluids. For the s-wave case, the ratio has the universal value 1/(4pi) as in various holographic models. For the p-wave case, there are two shear viscosity coefficients because of the anisotropic boundary spacetime, and one coefficient has the universal value. For the (p+ip)-wave case, the existing technique is not applicable since there is no tensor mode of metric perturbations which decouples from Yang-Mills perturbations. Our results indicate that the shear viscosity does not show a singular behavi…
In this paper we calculate the ratio of transverse shear viscosity to entropy density for the general anisotropic black brane in Horava-Lifshitz gravity. There is a well-known conjecture that states this ratio should be larger than $\frac{1}{4π}$. The ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density is proportional to the inverse square coupling of quantum thermal field theory,$\frac{η}{s} \sim \frac{1}{λ^2 }$. Especially in QFT with gravity dual the stronger coupling means the shear viscosity per entropy density gets closer to the lower bound of $\frac{1}{4π}$. The KSS bound preserves in the aniso…
Black hole membrane paradigm states that a certain viscous membrane seems to be sitting on a stretched horizon of a black hole from the viewpoint of a distant observer. We show that the shear viscosity of the fictitious membrane can be reproduced by a highly excited string covering the stretched horizon except for a numerical coefficient.
We study the shear viscosity in an effective hydrodynamic theory and holographic model where the translational symmetry is broken by massless scalar fields. We identify the shear viscosity, $η$, from the coefficient of the shear tensor in the modified constitutive relation, constructed from thermodynamic quantities, fluid velocity and the scalar fields, which break the translational symmetry explicitly. Our construction of constitutive relation is inspired by those derived from the fluid/gravity correspondence in the weakly disordered limit $m/T \ll 1$. We show that the shear viscosity from th…
We calculate the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density for a black brane of $5$-dimensional Einstein-Yang-Mills Gravity by Kubo and membrane paradigm methods. The former gives $\frac{1}{4π}$ exactly which is an expected result in the context of the Einstein-Hilbert gravity. In contrast, the membrane paradigm reaches $\frac{1}{4π}$ only in large horizon radius limit. We comment on this discrepancy.
The Einstein AdS black brane with a cloud of strings background in context of massive gravity is introduced. There is a momentum dissipation on the boundary because of graviton mass on the bulk. The ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density is calculated for this solution. This value violates the KSS bound if we apply the Dirichlet boundary and regularity on the horizon conditions. Our result shows that this value is independent of the cloud of strings.
We study thermoelectric conductivities and shear viscosities in a holographically anisotropic model, which is dual to a spatially anisotropic $\mathcal{N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills theory at finite chemical potential. Momentum relaxation is realized through perturbing the linear axion field. Ac conductivity exhibits a coherent/incoherent metal transition. Deviations from the Wiedemann-Franz law are also observed in our model. The longitudinal shear viscosity for prolate anisotropy violates the bound conjectured by Kovtun-Son-Starinets. We also find that thermodynamic and dynamical instabilities are …
Recently it was established in Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton gravity that the KSS viscosity/entropy ratio associated with AdS planar black holes can be viewed as the boundary dual to the generalized Smarr relation of the black holes in the bulk. In this paper we establish this relation in Einstein gravity with general minimally-coupled matter, and also in theories with an additional non-minimally coupled scalar field. We consider two examples for explicit demonstrations.
We calculate the shear viscosity and anomalous baryon number violation rate in quantum field theories at finite temperature having gravity duals with hyperbolic horizons. We find the explicit dependence of these quantities on the temperature. We show that the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density is below $1/(4π)$ at all temperatures and it can be made arbitrarily small in the low temperature limit.
We revisit the membrane paradigm calculations of the holographic shear viscosity tensor of strongly coupled isotropic plasmas with Einstein gravity dual by emphasizing the fact which was overlooked in the previous literatures that the shear viscosity is a fourth-rank tensor. Using the membrane paradigm we show that depending on whether the holographic shear viscosity tensor to entropy density ratio is η^j_i^j_i/s or η^{jiji}/s or η_{jiji}/s, we can derive three distinct formulae for the holographic shear viscosity tensor to entropy density ratios given explicitly in terms of the background met…
We consider an effective field theory description of beyond-quasi-particle excitations aiming to associate the transport properties of the system with the spectral density of states. Tuning various properties of the many-particle correlations, we investigate how the robust microscopic features are translated into the macroscopic observables like shear viscosity and entropy density. The liquid-gas crossover is analysed using several examples. A thermal constraint on the fluidity measure, the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density, is discussed.
The shear viscosity bound violation in Einstein gravity for anisotropic black branes is discussed, with the aim of constraining the deviation of the shear viscosity-entropy density ratio from the shear viscosity bound using causality and thermodynamics analysis. The results show that no stringent constraints can be imposed. The diffusion bound in anisotropic phases is also studied. Ultimately, it is concluded that shear viscosity violation always occurs in cases where the equation of motion of the metric fluctuations cannot be written in a form identical to that of the minimally coupled massle…
We derive an analytic expression for the shear viscosity of an ultra-relativistic gas in presence of both elastic $2\to 2$ and inelastic $2\leftrightarrow 3$ processes with isotropic differential cross sections. The derivation is based on the entropy principle and Grad's approximation for the off-equilibrium distribution function. The obtained formula relates the shear viscosity coefficient $η$ to the total cross sections $σ_{22}$ and $σ_{23}$ of the elastic resp. inelastic processes. The values of shear viscosity extracted using the Green-Kubo formula from kinetic transport calculations are s…
The shear viscosity of a gluon gas is calculated using the Green-Kubo relation. Time correlations of the energy-momentum tensor in thermal equilibrium are extracted from microscopic simulations using a parton cascade solving various Boltzmann collision processes. We find that the pQCD based gluon bremsstrahlung described by Gunion-Bertsch processes significantly lowers the shear viscosity by a factor of 3-8 compared to elastic scatterings. The shear viscosity scales with the coupling as 1/(alpha_s^2\log(1/alpha_s)). For a constant coupling constant the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio …
Starting from a classical picture of shear viscosity we construct a stationary velocity gradient in a microscopic parton cascade. Employing the Navier-Stokes ansatz we extract the shear viscosity coefficient $η$. For elastic isotropic scatterings we find an excellent agreement with the analytic values. This confirms the applicability of this method. Furthermore for both elastic and inelastic scatterings with pQCD based cross sections we extract the shear viscosity coefficient $η$ for a pure gluonic system and find a good agreement with already published calculations.
A family of deformed AdS4-Reissner-Nordström black branes, governed by a free parameter, is derived using the ADM formalism, in the context of the membrane paradigm. Their new event horizons, the Hawking temperature and other aspects are scrutinized. AdS/CFT near-horizon methods are then implemented to compute the shear viscosity-to-entropy ratio for the deformed AdS4-Reissner-Nordström metric. The Killing equation is shown to yield new values for the free parameter and the shear viscosity-to-entropy ratio is used to derive a reliable range for tidal charge.
We study holographic RG flow of the shear viscosity tensor of anisotropic, strongly coupled N=4 super-Yang-Mills plasma by using its type IIB supergravity dual in anisotropic bulk spacetime. We find that the shear viscosity tensor has three independent components in the anisotropic bulk spacetime away from the boundary, and one of the components has a non-trivial RG flow while the other two have a trivial one. For the component of the shear viscosity tensor with non-trivial RG flow, we derive its RG flow equation, and solve the equation analytically to second order in the anisotropy parameter …
The lower bound of the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio is examined using an exact representation of the ratio through the density of states. It is shown that the lower bound in a generic physical system is not universal, its value is determined by the entropy density. Some examples of physical systems are discussed in the paper where one can expect violation of the conformal 1/4pi value.
In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114 091301 (2105)] the cause of the acceleration of the present Universe has been identified with the shear viscosity of an imperfect relativistic fluid even in the absence of any bulk viscous contribution. The gist of this comment is that the shear viscosity, if anything, can only lead to an accelerated expansion over sufficiently small scales well inside the Hubble radius.
We present a proposal to measure anisotropic shear viscosity in a strongly interacting, ultra-cold, unitary Fermi gas confined in a harmonic trap. We introduce anisotropy in this setup by strongly confining the gas in one of the directions with relatively weak confinement in the remaining directions. This system has a close resemblance to anisotropic strongly coupled field theories studied recently in the context of gauge-gravity duality. Computations in such theories (which have gravity duals) revealed that some of the viscosity components of the anisotropic shear viscosity tensor can be made…
We analyze the contributions of Nambu-Goldstone modes to the shear viscosity of a superfluid atomic Fermi gas close to unitarity. We show that the low temperature experimental values of the shear viscosity to entropy ratio, $η/s$, are reproduced considering an effective shear viscosity which takes into account the collisions among Nambu-Goldstone bosons and the finite size of the optical trap. We predict that, for $T \lesssim 0.1 T_F$, $η/s$ should correlate with the size of the trap and linearly decrease with decreasing temperature. For $T \gtrsim 0.1 T_F$, we find agreement with the experime…
Shear viscosity of the classical $Φ^4$ theory is measured using classical microcanonical simulation. To calculate the Kubo formula, we measure the energy-momentum tensor correlation function, and apply the Green-Kubo relation. Being a classical theory, the results depend on the cutoff which should be chosen in the range of the temperature. Comparison with experimentally accessible systems is also performed.
A very famous result of gauge/gravity duality is the universality of the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density in every field theory holographically dual to classical, two-derivative (Einstein) gravity. We present a way to obtain deviation form this universality by breaking the rotational symmetry spontaneously. In anisotropic fluids additional shear modes exist and their corresponding shear viscosities may be non-universal. We confirm this by explicitly calculating the shear viscosities in a transversely isotropic background, a p-wave superfluid, and study its critical behavior. This is…
The ratio of bulk to shear viscosity is expected to exhibit a different behaviour in weakly and in strongly coupled systems. This can be expressed by its dependence on the squared sound velocity. In the high temperature QCD plasma at small running coupling, the viscosity ratio is uniquely determined by a quadratic dependence on the conformality measure, whereas in certain strongly coupled and nearly conformal theories this dependence is linear. Employing an effective kinetic theory of quasiparticle excitations with medium-modified dispersion relation, we analyze the ratio of bulk to shear visc…
In this paper we study the shear viscosity temperature dependence of $SU(3)$--gluodynamics within lattice simulation. To do so, we measure the correlation functions of energy-momentum tensor in the range of temperatures $T/T_c\in [0.9, 1.5]$. To extract the values of shear viscosity we used two approaches. The first one is to fit the lattice data with some physically motivated ansatz for the spectral function with unknown parameters and then determine shear viscosity. The second approach is to apply the Backus-Gilbert method which allows to extract shear viscosity from the lattice data nonpara…
We investigate the microscopic origin of the relaxation time coefficient in relativistic fluid dynamics. We show that the extraction of the shear viscosity relaxation time via the gradient expansion is ambiguous and in general fails to give the correct result. The correct value for the shear viscosity relaxation time is extracted from the slowest non-hydrodynamic pole of the corresponding retarded Green's function, if such a pole is purely imaginary. According to the AdS/CFT correspondence, in strongly-coupled $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM the non-hydrodynamic poles of the shear stress tensor nearest to…
The shear viscosity coefficient and the corresponding relaxation time for causal dissipative hydrodynamics are calculated based on the microscopic formula proposed in [T. Koide and T. Kodama, Phys. Rev. \textbf{E 78}, 051107 (2008)]. Here, the exact formula is transformed into a more compact form and applied it to evaluate these transport coefficients in the chiral perturbation theory and perturbative QCD. It is shown that in the leading order calculation, the causal shear viscosity coefficient $η$ reduces to that of the ordinary Green-Kubo-Nakano formula, and the relaxation time $τ_π$ is rela…
