It was argued by Brigante et.al that the lower bound on the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density in strongly coupled plasma is translated into microcausality violation in the dual gravitational description. Since transport properties of the system characterize its infrared dynamics, while the causality of the theory is determined by its ultraviolet behavior, the viscosity bound/microcausality link should not be applicable to theories that undergo low temperature phase transitions. We present an explicit model of AdS/CFT correspondence that confirms this fact.
In recent work we showed that, for a class of conformal field theories (CFT) with Gauss-Bonnet gravity dual, the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, $η/s$, could violate the conjectured Kovtun-Starinets-Son viscosity bound, $η/s\geq1/4π$. In this paper we argue, in the context of the same model, that tuning $η/s$ below $(16/25)(1/4π)$ induces microcausality violation in the CFT, rendering the theory inconsistent. This is a concrete example in which inconsistency of a theory and a lower bound on viscosity are correlated, supporting the idea of a possible universal lower bound on $η/s$ for…
Recently, it has been shown that if we consider the higher derivative correction, the viscosity bound conjectured to be $η/s=1/4π$ is violated and so is the causality. In this paper, we consider medium effect and the higher derivative correction simultaneously by adding charge and Gauss-Bonnet terms. We find that the viscosity bound violation is not changed by the charge. However, we find that two effects together create another instability for large momentum regime. We argue the presence of tachyonic modes and show it numerically. The stability of the black brane requires the Gauss-Bonnet cou…
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…
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…
The shear viscosity to the entropy density ratio $η/s$ of the anisotropic superfluid has been calculated by means of the gauge/gravity duality in the presence of the {\it dark matter} sector. The {\it dark matter} has been described by the Yang-Mills field analogous to the one describing visible matter sector and it is assumed to interact with the visible field with coupling constant $α$. Close to the superfluid transition temperature ($T_c$) the analytical solution has been given up to the leading order in a symmetry breaking parameter and the ratio of the gravitational constant and Yang-Mils…
We present a detailed analysis of the contribution of small-angle Nambu-Goldstone boson (phonon) collisions to the shear viscosity, $η$, in a superfluid atomic Fermi gas close to the unitarity limit. We show that the experimental values of the shear viscosity coefficient to entropy ratio, $η/s$, obtained at the lowest reached temperature can be reproduced assuming that phonons give the leading contribution to $η$. The phonon contribution is evaluated considering $1 \leftrightarrow 2$ processes and taking into account the finite size of the experimental system. In particular, for very low tempe…
We consider Lovelock theories of gravity in the context of AdS/CFT. We show that, for these theories, causality violation on a black hole background can occur well in the interior of the geometry, thus posing more stringent constraints than were previously found in the literature. Also, we find that instabilities of the geometry can appear for certain parameter values at any point in the geometry, as well in the bulk as close to the horizon. These new sources of causality violation and instability should be related to CFT features that do not depend on the UV behavior. They solve a puzzle foun…
In the present paper, based on the principles of gauge/gravity duality we analytically compute the shear viscosity to entropy ratio corresponding to the superfluid phase in Einstein Gauss-Bonnet gravity. From our analysis we note that the ratio indeed receives a finite temperature correction below certain critical temperature. This proves the non universality of shear viscosity to entropy ratio in higher derivative theories of gravity. We also compute the upper bound for the Gauss-Bonnet coupling corresponding to the symmetry broken phase and note that the upper bound on the coupling does not …
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 a low energy effective field theory for chiral superfluids, which accounts for both spontaneous symmetry breaking and fermionic ground-state topology. Using the theory, we show that the odd (or Hall) viscosity tensor, at small wave-vector, contains a dependence on the chiral central charge $c$ of the boundary degrees of freedom, as well as additional non-universal contributions. We identify related bulk observables which allow for a bulk measurement of $c$. In Galilean invariant superfluids, only the particle current and density responses to strain and electromagnetic fields are requ…
We construct a slowly varying space-time dependent holographic superfluid and compute its transport coefficients. Our solution is presented as a series expansion in inverse powers of the charge of the order parameter. We find that the shear viscosity associated with the motion of the condensate vanishes. The diffusion coefficient of the superfluid is continuous across the phase transition while its third bulk viscosity is found to diverge at the critical temperature. As was previously shown, the ratio of the shear viscosity of the normal component to the entropy density is 1/(4 pi). As a conse…
We construct the effective field theory for the A-phase of superfluid $^3$He up to the next-to-leading order in the derivative expansion. To this end, we gauge the internal global symmetries of the theory on the curved space by introducing the background gauge fields and spatial metric so as to expose a hidden local symmetry known as the nonrelativistic diffeomorphism. The nonrelativistic diffeomorphism is particularly useful to yield an additional constraint on the effective field theory and reveal a universal expression for the Hall viscosity in the A-phase. We find it five orders of magnitu…
We investigate $η/s$ in linear scalar fields modified Gauss-Bonnet theory that breaks translation invariance. We first calculate $η/s$ both analytically and numerically and show its relationship with temperature in log-log plot. Our results show that $η/s\sim T^2$ at low temperatures. The causality is also considered in this work. We then find that causality violation still happens in the presence of the linear scalar field and we suggest there is a Gauss-Bonnet coupling dependent lower limit for the effective mass of the graviton. If the effective mass of the graviton is big enough, then ther…
We compute the dimensionality dependence of $η/s$ for charged black branes with Gauss-Bonnet correction. We find that both causality and stability constrain the value of Gauss-Bonnet coupling constant to be bounded by 1/4 in the infinite dimensionality limit. We further show that higher dimensionality stabilize the gravitational perturbation. The stabilization of the perturbation in higher dimensional space-time is a straightforward consequence of the Gauss-Bonnet coupling constant bound.
We calculate the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density for charged black branes in third order Lovelock theory. For chargeless black branes, the result turns out to be consistent with the prediction made in $\rm arXiv:0808.3498[\rm hep-th] $. We find that, the third order Lovelock gravity term does not contribute to causality violation unlike the Gauss-Bonnet term. The stability of the black brane again requires the value of the Lovelock coupling constant to be bounded by 1/4 in the infinite dimensionality limit.
We consider a holographic model of chiral superfluidity whose bulk is Einstein Yang-Mills and compute viscosity and conductivity responses away from the probe limit. We calculate Hall viscosity and analyze its relationship to the superfluid density and the shift. We find that the relationship between these quantities derived from effective field theory at zero temperature persists for all temperatures: for $p\pm ip$ their ratio is equal to $\mp1/2$. At low temperatures the system develops a Lifshitz throat, indicating an anisotropic scaling symmetry in the infrared dynamics.
The Hall viscosity, a non-dissipative transport coefficient analogous to Hall conductivity, is considered for quantum fluids in gapped or topological phases. The relation to mean orbital spin per particle discovered in previous work by one of us is elucidated with the help of examples, using the geometry of shear transformations and rotations. For non-interacting particles in a magnetic field, there are several ways to derive the result (even at non-zero temperature), including standard linear response theory. Arguments for the quantization, and the robustness of Hall viscosity to small change…
We study the relation between the causality and the positivity of energy bounds in Gauss-Bonnet gravity in AdS_7 background and find a precise agreement. Requiring the group velocity of metastable states to be bounded by the speed of light places a bound on the value of Gauss-Bonnet coupling. To find the positivity of energy constraints we compute the parameters which determine the angular distribution of the energy flux in terms of three independent coefficients specifying the three-point function of the stress-energy tensor. We then relate the latter to the Weyl anomaly of the six-dimensiona…
We study transport phenomena in p-wave superfluids in the context of gauge/gravity duality. Due to the spacetime anisotropy of this system, the tensorial structure of the transport coefficients is non-trivial in contrast to the isotropic case. In particular, there is an additional shear mode which leads to a non-universal value of the shear viscosity even in an Einstein gravity setup. In this paper, we present a complete study of the helicity two and helicity one fluctuation modes. In addition to the non-universal shear viscosity, we also investigate the thermoelectric effect, i.e. the mixing …
We compute the coefficients of bulk viscosity for a non-relativistic superfluid corresponding to a fermionic system close to the unitarity limit. We consider the low temperature regime assuming that the transport properties of the system are dominated by phonons. To compute the coefficients of bulk viscosity we use kinetic theory in the relaxation time approximation and the low energy effective field theory of the corresponding system. We show that the three independent bulk viscosity coefficients, $ζ_1, ζ_2, ζ_3$, associated with irreversible flows vanish for phonons with a linear dispersion …
We compute the shear viscosity of the unitary Fermi gas above the superfluid transition temperature, using a diagrammatic technique that starts from the exact Kubo formula. The formalism obeys a Ward identity associated with scale invariance which guarantees that the bulk viscosity vanishes identically. For the shear viscosity, vertex corrections and the associated Aslamazov-Larkin contributions are shown to be crucial to reproduce the full Boltzmann equation result in the high-temperature, low fugacity limit. The frequency dependent shear viscosity $η(ω)$ exhibits a Drude-like transport peak …
We consider the phonon contribution to the bulk viscosities $ζ_1, ζ_2$ and $ζ_3$ of a cold relativistic superfluid. We assume the low temperature $T$ regime and that the transport properties of the system are dominated by the phonons. We use kinetic theory in the relaxation time approximation and the low energy effective field theory of the corresponding system. The parametric dependence of the bulk viscosity coefficients is fixed once the equation of state is specified, and the phonon dispersion law to cubic order in momentum is known. We first present a general discussion, valid for any supe…
In any quantum theory of gravity we do expect corrections to Einstein gravity to occur. Yet, at fundamental level, it is not apparent what the most relevant corrections are. We argue that the generic curvature square corrections present in lower dimensional actions of various compactified string theories provide a natural passage between the classical and quantum realms of gravity. The Gauss-Bonnet and $({\rm Riemann})^2$ gravities, in particular, provide concrete examples in which inconsistency of a theory, such as, a violation of microcausality, and a classical limit on black hole entropy ar…
Many trial wavefunctions for fractional quantum Hall states in a single Landau level are given by functions called conformal blocks, taken from some conformal field theory. Also, wavefunctions for certain paired states of fermions in two dimensions, such as p_x+ip_y states, reduce to such a form at long distances. Here we investigate the adiabatic transport of such many-particle trial wavefunctions using methods from two-dimensional field theory. One context for this is to calculate the statistics of widely-separated quasiholes, which has been predicted to be non-Abelian in a variety of cases.…
The gravity/gauge theory duality has provided us a way of studying QCD at short distances from straightforward calculations in classical general relativity. Among numerous results obtained so far, one of the most striking is the universality of the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density. For all gauge theories with Einstein gravity dual, this ratio is η/s=1/4π. However, in general higher-curvature gravity theories, including two concrete models under discussion - the Gauss-Bonnet gravity and the (Riemann)^2 gravity - the ratio η/s can be smaller than 1/4π(thus violating the conjec…
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…
We construct an analytic solution of the Einstein-SU(2)-Yang-Mills system as the holographic dual of an anisotropic superfluid near its critical point, up to leading corrections in both the inverse Yang-Mills coupling and a symmetry breaking order parameter. We have also calculated the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density in this background, and shown that the universality of this ratio is lost in the broken symmetry direction. The ratio displays a scaling behavior near the critical point with critical exponent $β=1$, at the leading order in the double expansion.
