The large N_c N=4 gauge theory with quenched N=2 quark matter in the presence of a magnetic field displays chiral symmetry breaking. We study the temperature and chemical potential dependence of this theory using its gravity dual (based on the D3/D7 brane system). With massless quarks, at zero chemical potential, the theory displays a first order thermal transition where chiral symmetry is restored and simultaneously the mesons of the theory melt. At zero temperature, these transitions with chemical potential are second order and occur at different chemical potential values. Between the three there are two tri-critical points, the positions of which we identify. At finite quark mass the second order transition for chiral symmetry becomes a cross over and there is a critical point at the end of the first order transition, while the meson melting transition remains similar to the massless quark case. We track the movement of the critical points as the mass is raised relative to the magnetic field.
We calculate anomaly induced conductivities from a holographic gauge theory model using Kubo formulas, making a clear conceptual distinction between thermodynamic state variables such as chemical potentials and external background fields. This allows us to pinpoint ambiguities in previous holographic calculations of the chiral magnetic conductivity. We also calculate the corresponding anomalous current three-point functions in special kinematic regimes. We compare the holographic results to weak coupling calculations using both dimensional regularization and cutoff regularization. In order to …
We explore the end point of the helical instability in finite density, finite magnetic field background discussed by Kharzeev and Yee [1]. The nonlinear solution is obtained and identified with the (magnetized) chiral density wave phase in literature. We find there are two branches of solutions, which match with the two unstable modes in [1]. At large chemical potential and magnetic field, the magnetized chiral density wave can be thermodynamically preferred over chirally symmetric phase and chiral symmetry breaking phase. Interestingly, we find an exotic state with vanishing chemical potentia…
The breaking of chiral symmetry in holographic light-front QCD is encoded in its longitudinal dynamics with its chiral limit protected by the superconformal algebraic structure which governs its transverse dynamics. The scale in the longitudinal light-front Hamiltonian determines the confinement strength in this direction: It is also responsible for most of the light meson ground state mass consistent with the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner constraint. Longitudinal confinement and the breaking of chiral symmetry are found to be different manifestations of the same underlying dynamics as found in 't Ho…
We study the ground state of baryonic/axial matter at zero temperature chiral-symmetry broken phase under a large magnetic field, in the framework of holographic QCD by Sakai-Sugimoto. Our study is motivated by a recent proposal of chiral magnetic spiral phase that has been argued to be favored against previously studied phase of homogeneous distribution of axial/baryonic currents in terms of meson super-currents dictated by triangle anomalies in QCD. Our results provide an existence proof of chiral magnetic spiral in strong coupling regime via holography, at least for large axial chemical pot…
We obtain the pion decay constant and coefficients of fourth derivative terms in the chiral Lagrangian for massless quarks in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model. We extract these quantities from the two-pion scattering amplitude, which we compute directly in the holographic dual through tree-level Witten diagrams. Identification of the low energy coefficients in the chiral action is subtle as their values will be shifted when the tower of massive vector bosons are integrated out. Indeed, by a direct comparison with the existing standard procedure of constructing the chiral action with radial mode…
We present holographic computations of the time-dependent chiral magnetic conductivity in the framework of gauge/gravity correspondence. Chiral magnetic effect is a phenomenon where an electromagnetic current parallel to an applied magnetic field is induced in the presence of a finite axial chemical potential. Motivated by a recent weak-coupling perturbative QCD calculation, our aim is to provide a couple of complementary computations for strongly coupled regime which might be relevant for strongly coupled RHIC plasma. We take two prototypical holographic set-ups for computing chiral magnetic …
With proper profiles of the scalar potential and the dilaton field, for the first time, the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum and its restoration at finite temperature are correctly realized in the holographic QCD framework. In the chiral limit, a nonzero chiral condensate develops in the vacuum and decreases with temperature, and the phase transition is of 2nd order for two-flavor case and of 1st order for three-flavor case. In the case of explicit chiral symmetry breaking, in two-flavor case, the 2nd order phase transition turns to crossover with any nonzero current quark ma…
We consider the chiral condensate in the baryonic dense medium using the generalized Sakai-Sugimoto model. It is defined as the vacuum expectation value of open Wilson line that is proposed to be calculated by use of the area of world-sheet instanton. We evaluate it in confined as well as deconfined phase. In both phases, the chiral condensate has a minimum as a function of baryon density. In the deconfined phase, taking into account the chiral symmetry restoration, we classify the behavior of chiral condensate into three types. One can set the parameter of the theory such that the results, in…
We consider the finite temperature phase diagram of holographic QCD in the Veneziano limit (Nc large, Nf large with xf=Nf/Nc fixed) and calculate one string-loop corrections to the free energy in certain approximations. Such corrections, especially due to the pion modes are unsuppressed in the Veneziano limit. We find that under some extra assumptions the first order transition following from classical gravity solutions can become second order. If stringy asymptotics are of a special form and there are residual interactions it may even become of third order. Operationally these computations im…
We investigate the effect of a non-zero magnetic field on the chiral condensate using a holographic QCD approach. We extend the model proposed by Iatrakis, Kiritsis and Paredes in arXiv:1010.1364 that realises chiral symmetry breaking dynamically from 5d tachyon condensation. We calculate the chiral condensate, magnetisation and susceptibilities for the confined and deconfined phases. The model leads, in the probe approximation, to magnetic catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking in both confined and deconfined phases. In the chiral limit, $m_q=0$, we find that in the deconfined phase a sufficie…
Based on a holographic far-from-equilibrium calculation of the chiral magnetic effect~(CME) in an expanding quark gluon plasma, we study collisions at various energies. We compute the time evolution of the CME current in the presence of a time-dependent axial charge density and subject to a time-dependent magnetic field. The plasma expansion leads to a dilution of the CME current. We study distinct combinations of how the initial magnetic field and initial axial charge behave with changing initial energy as proposed in previous literature. Most scenarios we consider lead to an increasing time-…
In a hard-wall model of holographic QCD, we find that nonlinear boundary dynamics are required in order to maintain the correct pattern of explicit and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking beyond leading order in the pion fields. With the help of a field redefinition, we relate the requisite nonlinear boundary conditions to a standard Sturm-Liouville system. Observables insensitive to the chiral limit receive only small corrections in the improved description, and classical calculations in the hard-wall model remain surprisingly accurate.
We study the relationship between chiral symmetry breaking and baryons in holographic QCD. We construct a soliton with unit baryon charge in the presence of a nonzero mean value of the scalar bifundamental field, which is dual to the chiral condensate. We obtain a relation between the chiral condensate and the mass of the baryon and find in a clear-cut way that at large values of the condensate the holographic soliton is no longer located on the IR wall. Instead it is split into two halves, which are symmetrically located on the left and right flavor branes. On the other hand we find that the …
We consider the model of holographic QCD with asymptotic freedom and gluon condensation in its vacuum. It consists of the color D4-branes and D0-branes as a background and the flavor D8-branes as a probe. By taking a specific field theory limit, the effective coupling decreases to vanish in UV region. We then introduce the uniformly distributed baryons in terms of the baryon vertices and study the density dependence of chiral condensate, which is evaluated using the worldsheet instanton method. In the confined phase, the chiral condensate as a function of density monotonically decreases in hig…
The D3/D7 system holographically describes an N=2 gauge theory which spontaneously breaks a chiral symmetry by the formation of a quark condensate in the presence of a magnetic field. At finite temperature it displays a first order phase transition. We study out of equilibrium dynamics associated with this transition by placing probe D7 branes in a geometry describing a boost-invariant expanding or contracting plasma. We use an adiabatic approximation to track the evolution of the quark condensate in a heated system and reproduce the phase structure expected from equilibrium dynamics. We then …
We analyze a holographic model with a pure gauge and a mixed gauge-gravitational Chern-Simons term in the action. These are the holographic implementations of the usual chiral and the mixed gauge-gravitational anomalies in four dimensional field theories with chiral fermions. We discuss the holographic renormalization and show that the gauge-gravitational Chern-Simons term does not induce new divergences. In order to cancel contributions from the extrinsic curvature at a boundary at finite distance a new type of counterterm has to be added however. This counterterm can also serve to make the D…
We investigate the effect of a magnetic field on the vacuum of low-temperature QCD at large-N_c in the presence of a chiral chemical potential, using the holographic Sakai-Sugimoto model. Above some critical chemical potential we find an instability, which triggers a decay of the homogeneous vacuum to a non-homogeneous configuration with a spiral form, which we construct explicitly. We find that this decay is suppressed for sufficiently large magnetic field, and determine the critical strength. We find that the new vacuum does not exhibit the chiral magnetic effect. This is related to the way …
A self-consistent holographic QCD model is proposed which can realize both chiral symmetry breaking and confinement, two most important phenomena of QCD. It is pointed out that the model can accommodate both Regge spectra of hadrons and the linear potential between quarks. The model is formulated in the framework of graviton-dilaton-scalar system, where the dilaton field is dual to the dimension-2 gluon condensate and can lead to the linear confinement, while the scalar field corresponds to the quark anti-quark condensate and can explain the property of chiral dynamics.
We study dispersion relations of hydrodynamic waves of hot N=4 SYM plasma at strong coupling with a finite U(1) R-charge chemical potential via holography. We first provide complete equations of motion of linearized fluctuations out of a charged AdS black-hole background according to their helicity, and observe that helicity +1 and -1 transverse shear modes receive a new parity-odd contribution from the 5D Chern-Simons term, which is dual to 4D U(1)^3 anomaly. We present a systematic solution of the helicity +1,-1 wave equations in long wave-length expansion, and obtain the corresponding dispe…
We investigate the chiral electric separation effect, where an axial current is induced by an electric field in the presence of both vector and axial chemical potentials, in a strongly coupled plasma via the Sakai-Sugimoto model with an $U(1)_R\times U(1)_L$ symmetry. By introducing different chemical potentials in $U(1)_R$ and $U(1)_L$ sectors, we compute the axial direct current (DC) conductivity stemming from the chiral current and the normal DC conductivity. We find that the axial conductivity is approximately proportional to the product of the axial and vector chemical potentials for arbi…
Due to the Weyl anomaly, an axial vector field produces novel anomalous chiral currents in spacetime with boundaries. Remarkably, the chiral current is not invariant under the gauge transformation of axial vector fields. As a result, more potential terms appear, and the chiral current becomes larger than the electric current near the boundary. This paper investigates the anomalous chiral current in AdS/BCFT. We find that the minimal holographic model of the axial vector field cannot produce the expected chiral current. To resolve this problem, we propose adding a suitable boundary action. Furt…
We calculate the electric conductivity $σ$ in deconfined QCD matter using a holographic QCD model, i.e., the Sakai-Sugimoto Model with varying magnetic field $B$ and chiral anomaly strength. After confirming that our estimated $σ$ for $B=0$ is consistent with the lattice-QCD results, we study the case with $B\neq 0$ in which the coefficient $α$ in the Chern-Simons term controls the chiral anomaly strength. Our results imply that the transverse conductivity, $σ_\perp$, is suppressed to be $\lesssim 70\%$ at $B\sim 1\,\mathrm{GeV}^2$ as compared to the $B=0$ case when the temperature is fixed as…
Notes on holographic renormalization as a tool for UV analysis and derivation of the two-point Ward identity encoding symmetry breaking. Goldstone theorem is reviewed, discussing in particular the modifications required by its extension to non-relativistic field theories. The Ward identity encoding both spontaneous and explicit breaking are derived by general principles. Holographic renormalization is presented in a quite operational fashion. The derivation of the Ward identity in holography is illustrated by an example.
Frustration is an important phenomenon in condensed matter physics because it can introduce a new order parameter such as chirality. Towards understanding a mechanism of the frustration in strongly correlated systems, we study a holographic superconductor model with three scalar fields and an interband Josephson coupling, which is important for the frustration. We analyze free energy of solutions of the model to determine ground states. We find chiral ground states, which have nonzero chirality.
In the presence of a quark chemical potential, a magnetic field induces an axial current in the direction of the magnetic field. We compute this current in the Sakai-Sugimoto model, a holographic model which, in a certain limit, is dual to large-N_c QCD. We also compute the analogous vector current, for which an axial chemical potential is formally introduced. This vector current can potentially be observed via charge separation in heavy-ion collisions. After implementing the correct axial anomaly in the Sakai-Sugimoto model we find an axial current in accordance with previous studies and a va…
The soft wall model in holographic QCD has Regge trajectories but wrong operator product expansion (OPE) for the two-point vectorial QCD Green function. We modify the dilaton potential to comply OPE. We study also the axial two-point function using the same modified dilaton field and an additional scalar field to address chiral symmetry breaking. OPE is recovered adding a boundary term and low energy chiral parameters, $F_π$ and $L_{10}$, are well described analytically by the model in terms of Regge spacing and QCD condensates. The model nicely supports and extends previous theoretical analys…
We develop a method for integrating out the heavy Kaluza-Klein modes of scalar type as well as those of vector and axial-vector types, in a class of hard-wall bottom-up approaches of holographic QCD models, including the Dirac-Born-Infeld and Chern-Simons parts. By keeping only the lowest-lying vector mesons, we first obtain an effective chiral Lagrangian of the vector mesons based on the hidden local symmetry, and all the low-energy constants in the HLS Lagrangian are expressed in terms of holographic integrals and, consequently, are fully determined by the holographic geometry and a few cons…
We propose a general method for finding a string-like meson spectrum which is based on a certain condition for the breaking of closed gluon string. A model is constructed that successfully realizes the proposed method. The model is based on the holographic Soft Wall model for QCD and the use of the Wilson confinement criterion. We applied our approach to the vector and scalar cases and obtained numerical predictions for the intercepts of corresponding Regge like radial meson spectra. A good agreement is obtained both with the existing experimental data and with some other known phenomenologica…
Bottom-up holographic models of QCD, inspired by the AdS/CFT correspondence, have shown a remarkable degree of phenomenological success. However, they rely on a number of bold assumptions. We investigate the reliability of one of the key assumptions, which involves matching the parameters of these models to QCD at high 4D momentum $q^2$ and renormalization scale $μ^2$. We show that this leads to phenomenological and theoretical inconsistencies for scale-dependent quantities such as $\bra \bar{q}q\ket$
We explore the role of a holographic Wilsonian cut-off in simple probe brane models with chiral symmetry breaking/restoration phase transitions. The Wilsonian cut-off allows us to define supergravity solutions for off-shell configurations and hence to define a potential for the chiral condensate. We pay particular attention to the need for configurations whose action we are comparing to have the same IR and UV boundary conditions. We exhibit new first and second order phase transitions with changing cut-off. We derive the effective potential for the condensate including mean field and BKT type…
We calculate the one-point function of certain chiral operators, known as open Wilson lines, in the holographic Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model at finite temperature as well as finite chemical potential for quark (baryon) number density. These operators are holographically dual to Euclidean string worldsheets bounded by the flavor branes. Their one-point functions can serve as order parameters for chiral symmetry breaking in these models. Analyzing the behavior of the dual string worldsheets with respect to temperature and chemical potential (or quark density) enables us to determine how the or…
We investigate non-linear extensions of the holographic soft wall model proposed by Karch, Katz, Son and Stephanov [1] including non-minimal couplings in the five-dimensional action. The non-minimal couplings bring a new parameter $a_0$ which controls the transition between spontaneous and explicit symmetry breaking near the limit of massless quarks (the chiral limit). In the physical region (positive quark mass), we show that above a critical value of the parameter $a_0$ the chiral condensate $\langle \bar{q} q \rangle$ is finite in the chiral limit, signifying spontaneous chiral symmetry bre…
We perform a general chiral symmetry and unitarity based analysis of a local process of the fermion-antifermion creation from the vacuum by a high-energy photon as well as an explicit partial wave analysis of the vector current in QED and QCD. It turns out that such a local process proceeds necessarily via a certain superposition of the $S$- and $D$-wave contributions. These constraints from chiral symmetry and unitarity are confronted then with the well-known theoretical and experimental results on $e^+e^-\toγ\to e^+e^-$, $e^+e^-\toγ\to μ^+μ^-$, and $e^+e^-\toγ\to q\bar{q}$ in the ultrarelati…
We argue that the chiral conductivities of generic s-wave holographic superfluids, whose broken U(1) symmetry is anomalous, exhibit universal behavior at low temperatures. The universal behavior we argue for is independent of the details of the bulk action and on the emergent geometry deep in the bulk interior at low temperatures. Our results are contrasted against general expectations based on an analysis of the entropy current in superfluids.
We investigate nonlinear extensions of the holographic soft wall model proposed by Karch, Katz, Son and Stephanov \cite{Karch:2006pv} with a positive quadratic dilaton. We consider a Higgs potential for the tachyonic field that brings a more natural realisation of chiral symmetry breaking in the infrared regime. Utilising the AdS/CFT dictionary and holographic renormalisation we find the chiral condensate as a function of the quark mass. The nonlinearity of the Higgs potential leads to a nonlinear relation between the chiral condensate and the quark mass. Solving the effective Schrödinger equa…
We review a recent investigation of the effect of magnetic catalysis of mass generation in holographic Yang-Mills theories. We aim at a self-contained and pedagogical form of the review. We provide a brief field theory background and review the basics of holographic flavordynamics. The main part of the review investigates the influence of external magnetic field on holographic gauge theories dual to the D3/D5-- and D3/D7-- brane intersections. Among the observed phenomena are the spontaneous breaking of a global internal symmetry, Zeeman splitting of the energy levels and the existence of pseu…
The chiral symmetry breaking ($χ_{SB}$) is one of the most fundamental problems in QCD. In this paper, we calculate quark condensation analytically in a holographic QCD model dual to the Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMD) system coupled to a probe scalar field. We find that the black hole phase transition in the EMD system seriously affects $χ_{SB}$. At small chemical potential, $χ_{SB}$ behaves as a crossover. For large chemical potential $μ>μ_c$, $χ_{SB}$ becomes first order with exactly the same transition temperature as the black hole phase transition by a bypass mechanism. The phase diagram w…
The general gauge mediation scenario provides a framework in which properties of a visible sector with soft supersymmetry breaking are computed from current correlation functions in the supersymmetry breaking hidden sector. In this paper we will use holography to model strongly coupled hidden sectors by weakly curved geometries and describe how the current correlators relevant for general gauge mediation are computed by holographic methods. We illustrate the general setup by a toy example which captures most of the relevant features.
The transverse part of the vector-axial vector flavor current correlator in the presence of weak external electric field is studied using holography. The correlator is calculated using a bottom-up model arxiv:1003.2377 {proposed recently}, that includes the non-linear dynamics of the chiral condensate. It is shown that for low momenta the result agrees with the relation proposed by arXiv:1010.0718 {Son and Yamamoto} motivated by a simpler holographic model. For large Euclidean momenta however, the two results diverge. In the process, the difference of the vector and axial vector two point func…
We calculate the low energy constants of four-nucleon interactions in an effective chiral Lagrangian in holographic QCD. We start with a D4-D8 model to obtain meson-nucleon interactions and then integrate out massive mesons to obtain the four-nucleon interactions in 4D. We end up with two low energy constants at the leading order and seven of them at the next leading order, which is consistent with the effective chiral Lagrangian. The values of the low energy constants are evaluated with the first five Kaluza-Klein resonances.
We study dense nuclear and quark matter within a single microscopic approach, namely the holographic Sakai-Sugimoto model. Nuclear matter is described via instantons in the bulk, and we show that instanton interactions are crucial for a continuous connection of chirally broken and chirally symmetric phases. The continuous path from nuclear to quark matter includes metastable and unstable stationary points of the potential, while the actual chiral phase transition remains of first order, as in earlier approximations. We show that the model parameters can be chosen to reproduce low-density prope…
We study anomalous conductivities in Chiral Superfluids in the framework of two different holographic models, by means of Kubo formulae. In addition, we point out the existence of an anomalous transport phenomenon that consists in the presence of a charge density when the superfluid velocity is aligned with a magnetic field. It has been pointed out recently that certain chiral conductivities in holographic superfluids exhibit universal behavior at zero temperature. We show that anomalous conductivities always stabilize at low temperatures in our setup. Even though the particular value they acq…
We study the chiral phase transition in a magnetic field at finite temperature and chemical potential within the Sakai-Sugimoto model, a holographic top-down approach to (large-N_c) QCD. We consider the limit of a small separation of the flavor D8-branes, which corresponds to a dual field theory comparable to a Nambu-Jona Lasinio (NJL) model. Mapping out the surface of the chiral phase transition in the parameter space of magnetic field strength, quark chemical potential, and temperature, we find that for small temperatures the addition of a magnetic field decreases the critical chemical poten…
We investigate symmetry breaking in two-dimensional field theories which have a holographic gravity dual. Being at large N, the Coleman theorem does not hold and Goldstone bosons are expected. We consider the minimal setup to describe a conserved current and a charged operator, and we perform holographic renormalization in order to find the correct Ward identities describing symmetry breaking. This involves some subtleties related to the different boundary conditions that a vector can have in the three-dimensional bulk. We establish which is the correct prescription that yields, after renormal…
We consider a holographic model of dynamical symmetry breaking in 2+1-dimenisons, where a parallel D7-anti-D7 brane pair fuse into a single object, corresponding to the U(1)XU(1)->U(1) symmetry breaking pattern. We show that the current-current correlation functions can be computed analytically and exhibit the low momentum structure that is expected when global symmetries are spontaneously broken. We also find that these correlation functions have poles attributable to infinite towers of vector mesons with equally spaced masses.
