We describe the dynamics of strongly coupled field theories in de Sitter spacetime using the holographic gauge/gravity duality. The main motivation for this is to explore the possibility of dynamical phase transitions during cosmological evolution. Specifically, we study two classes of theories: (i) conformal field theories on de Sitter in the static patch which are maintained in equilibrium at temperatures that may differ from the de Sitter temperature and (ii) confining gauge theories on de Sitter spacetime. In the former case we show the such states make sense from the holographic viewpoint in that they have regular bulk gravity solutions. In the latter situation we add to the evidence for a confinement/deconfinement transition for a large N planar gauge theory as the cosmological acceleration is increased past a critical value. For the field theories we study, the critical acceleration corresponds to a de Sitter temperature which is less than the Minkowski space deconfinement transition temperature by a factor of the spacetime dimension.
We employ gauge-gravity duality to study the backreaction effect of 4-dimensional large-$N$ quantum field theories on constant-curvature backgrounds, and in particular de Sitter space-time. The field theories considered are holographic QFTs, dual to RG flows between UV and IR CFTs. We compute the holographic QFT contribution to the gravitational effective action for 4d Einstein manifold backgrounds. We find that for a given value of the cosmological constant $λ$, there generically exist two backreacted constant-curvature solutions, as long as $λ< λ_{\textrm{max}} \sim M_p^2 / N^2$, otherwise n…
We study strongly coupled mass-deformed-CFT on a fixed de Sitter spacetime in three dimensions via holography. We elucidate the global causal structure of the four-dimensional spacetime dual to the de Sitter invariant vacuum state. The conformal boundaries of de Sitter appear as spacelike defects sourced by the mass deformation, which extend into the bulk as curvature singularities in AdS. We compute all one- and two-point functions of the deformed-CFT stress tensor and a scalar operator order-by-order in the mass deformation for a simple holographic model. These correlation functions admit a …
We consider the consequences of global higher-spin symmetries in quantum field theories on a fixed de Sitter background of spacetime dimension $D \ge 3$. These symmetries enhance the symmetry group associated with the isometries of the de Sitter background and thus strongly constrain the dynamics of the theory. In particular, we consider the case when a higher spin charge acts linearly on a scalar operator to leading order in a Fefferman-Graham expansion near the future/past conformal boundaries. We show that this implies that the expectation values of the operator inserted near the boundaries…
Holographic CFTs and holographic RG flows on space-time manifolds which are $d$-dimensional products of spheres are investigated. On the gravity side, this corresponds to Einstein-dilaton gravity on an asymptotically $AdS_{d+1}$ geometry, foliated by a product of spheres. We focus on holographic theories on $S^2\times S^2$, we show that the only regular five-dimensional bulk geometries have an IR endpoint where one of the sphere shrinks to zero size, while the other remains finite. In the $Z_2$-symmetric limit, where the two spheres have the same UV radii, we show the existence of a infinite d…
We derive the Symmetry Topological Field Theories (SymTFTs) for 3d supersymmetric quantum field theories (QFTs) constructed in M-theory either via geometric engineering or holography. These 4d SymTFTs encode the symmetry structures of the 3d QFTs, for instance the generalized global symmetries and their 't Hooft anomalies. Using differential cohomology, we derive the SymTFT by reducing M-theory on a 7-manifold $Y_7$, which either is the link of a conical Calabi-Yau four-fold or part of an $\text{AdS}_4\times Y_7$ holographic solution. In the holographic setting we first consider the 3d $\mathc…
We compute the length of spacelike geodesics anchored at opposite sides of certain double-sided flow geometries in two dimensions. These geometries are asymptotically anti-de Sitter but they admit either a de Sitter or a black hole event horizon in the interior. While in the geometries with black hole horizons, the geodesic length always exhibit linear growth at late times, in the flow geometries with de Sitter horizons, geodesics with finite length only exist for short times of the order of the inverse temperature and they do not exhibit linear growth. We comment on the implications of these …
We investigate infrared logarithms in de Sitter space from holographic perspective. We employ a gravitational Fokker-Planck equation to investigate the time evolution of the de Sitter entropy $S=π/(G_N H^2)$, where $H$ is the Hubble parameter and $G_N$ is the Newton's constant. Under the Gaussian approximation, we obtain the dynamical $β$ function of $g=1/S$. It is asymptotically free toward the future. It also possesses the ultraviolet fixed point indicating that the Universe started the de Sitter expansion at the Planck scale. The pre-inflation era exists to prepare a special initial conditi…
We introduce higher-derivative Gauss-Bonnet correction terms in the gravity sector and we relate the modified gravity theory in the bulk to the strongly coupled quantum field theory on a de Sitter boundary. We study the process of holographic thermalization by examining three nonlocal observables, the two-point function, the Wilson loop and the holographic entanglement entropy. We study the time evolution of these three observables and we find that as the strength of the Gauss-Bonnet coupling is increased, the saturation time of the thermalization process to reach thermal equilibrium becomes s…
Hydrodynamics is a universal effective theory describing relaxation of quantum field theories towards equilibrium. Massive QFTs in de Sitter spacetime are never at equilibrium. We use holographic gauge theory/gravity correspondence to describe relaxation of a QFT to its Bunch-Davies vacuum - an attractor of its late-time dynamics. Specifically, we compute the analogue of the quasinormal modes describing the relaxation of a holographic toy model QFT in de Sitter.
We describe a systematic way of computing the 't Hooft anomalies for continuous symmetries of Quantum Field Theories in even dimensions that can be geometrically engineered from M5-branes. Our approach is based on anomaly inflow, and characterizes the anomaly polynomial of the QFT in terms of the geometric definition of the field theory. In particular, when the QFT admits a holographic dual, the topological data of the solution is sufficient to compute the anomalies of the dual field theory, including finite terms in $N$. We study several classes of examples in four and six dimensions, with or…
Quantum Field Theories (QFTs) in Anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime are often strongly coupled when the radius of AdS is large, and few methods are available to study them. In this work, we develop a Hamiltonian truncation method to compute the energy spectrum of QFTs in two-dimensional AdS. The infinite volume of constant timeslices of AdS leads to divergences in the energy levels. We propose a simple prescription to obtain finite physical energies and test it with numerical diagonalization in several models: the free massive scalar field, $ϕ^4$ theory, Lee-Yang and Ising field theory. Along the …
We consider (2+1)-QFT at finite temperature on a product of time with a static spatial geometry. The suitably defined difference of thermal vacuum free energy for the QFT on a deformation of flat space from its value on flat space is a UV finite quantity, and for reasonable fall-off conditions on the deformation is IR finite too. For perturbations of flat space we show this free energy difference goes quadratically with perturbation amplitude and may be computed from the linear response of the stress tensor. As an illustration we compute it for a holographic CFT finding that at any temperature…
A metric is proposed to explore the noncommutative form of the Anti-de Sitter space due to quantum effects. It has been proved that the non commutativity in AdS space induces a single component gravitoelectric field. The holographic Ryu-Takayanagi (RT) algorithm is then applied to compute the entanglement entropy in dual $CFT_2$. This calculation can be exploited to compute UV-IR cutoff dependent central charge of the certain noncommutative $CFT_2$. This non commutative computation of the entanglement entropy can be interpreted in the form of the surface/state correspondence. We have shown tha…
We explore asymptotically AdS$_2$ solutions of a particular two-dimensional dilaton-gravity theory. In the deep interior, these solutions flow to the cosmological horizon of dS$_2$. We calculate various matter perturbations at the linearised and non-linear level. We consider both Euclidean and Lorentzian perturbations. The results can be used to characterise the features of a putative dual quantum mechanics. The chaotic nature of the de Sitter horizon is assessed through the soft mode action at the AdS$_2$ boundary, as well as the behaviour of shockwave type solutions.
Using entanglement in dS/CFT correspondence, we show that a 4-dimensional de Sitter spacetime in the bulk fluctuates. We calculated the fluctuations of the entanglement entropy, which backreacts with the geometry of the bulk spacetime indicated by the fluctuations of the horizon radius. The variance of the fluctuations is suppressed by $G_N$ and multiplied by $H_{dS}^2$. Therefore, it will be more significant during the primordial era where it is also well described by de Sitter geometry. We also show that the distribution of the fluctuations is also skewed with the local non-linearity paramet…
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence, we construct the holographic dual of a tunneling instanton describing Schwinger pair creation in de Sitter space. Our approach allows us to extract the critical value of the electric field for which the potential barrier disappears, rendering the vacuum unstable. In addition, we compute the large-$λ$, large-$N_c$ corrections to the nucleation rate and we find that it agrees with previous expectations based on perturbative computations. As a by-product of this investigation, we study the causal structure of the string dual to the nucleated pair as seen by diffe…
We study holographic thermalization in spacetimes with a chemical potential and a non-trivial dilaton field. Three non-local observables are used to probe the whole process and investigate the effect of the ratio of the chemical potential over temperature $χ$ and the dilaton-Maxwell coupling constant $α$. It is found that the saturation time is not always a monotonically increasing function of $χ$, the situation depends on $α$. When $0 \leqα\leq 1$, larger $χ$ yields longer saturation time, while for $α>1$, the situation becomes more complex. More interesting, we found that although $α$ indeed…
We perform the resummation of the infrared logarithms in the inflationary universe. Applying the renormalization group, we derive the stochastic equations as the effective theory at the horizon. We focus on the conformal zero mode to respect local Lorentz symmetry. Under Gaussian approximation, we derive the fundamental equation for the Universe (EqU). We also derive the identical equation from the first law of thermodynamics in a dual geometric picture. We believe it is a convincing evidence for de Sitter duality between quantum stochastic physics on the boundary and classical thermodynamics …
Lanzhou University（兰州大学）；Research Center of Gravitation, Lanzhou University（兰州大学引力研究中心）；University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学）；Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学应用数学系）；Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学量子计算研究所）；Perimeter Institute For Theoretical Physics（理论物理前沿研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学物理与天文系）；School of Physics, Jiangxi Normal University（江西师范大学物理学院）
We argue that the flat spacetime with inexact quantum mechanics in it is dual to the de Sitter spacetime with exact quantum mechanics in it, and the positive cosmological constant of this de Sitter spacetime is in the second order of the degree of the violation of the bulk quantum mechanics in the flat spacetime. The flat spacetime is holographic and has a dual time-contracted boundary conformal field theory with two redefined central charges at null infinity. The vanishing smallness of the observed positive cosmological constant suggests the extraordinary exactness of the bulk quantum mechani…
In this paper, based on the fundamental principles of Gauge/gravity duality and considering a \textit{global quench}, we probe the physics of thermalization for a special class of strongly coupled non relativistic QFTs by computing the entanglement entropy of the plasma. The isometry group of such QFTs is comprised of the generators of the Schrödinger algebra which could be precisely realized as an isometry group of the killing generators of an asymptotically Schrödinger $ Dp $ brane space time. In our analysis, we note that during the pre local stages of the thermal equilibrium the entangleme…
We employ holographic duality to compute $\langle T_{μν} \rangle$ in strongly coupled $\mathcal N = 4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and then study evolution of the semiclassical Einstein field equations sourced by $\langle T_{μν} \rangle$. Linearizing about de Sitter space, we find that the semiclassical equations of motion reduce to a four dimensional scalar wave equation coupled to a five dimensional scalar wave equation. We compute the mode spectrum of these equations and find that there exists a critical value of the Hubble constant $H_c$ for which de Sitter space is unstable when $H <…
Odd-dimensional quantum field theories (QFTs) can have nonzero trace anomalies if external fields are introduced and some ingredients needed to make Lorentz scalars with appropriate mass dimensions (or weights) are supplied. We have studied a three-dimensional QFT and explicitly computed the trace of the stress tensor using the holographic local renormalization group (RG). We have checked some properties of vector beta functions and the Wess-Zumino consistency condition, however, found the anomalies vanish on fixed points. We clarify what is responsible for the vanishing trace anomalies.
We demonstrate that for general conformal field theories (CFTs), the entanglement for small perturbations of the vacuum is organized in a novel holographic way. For spherical entangling regions in a constant time slice, perturbations in the entanglement entropy are solutions of a Klein-Gordon equation in an auxiliary de Sitter (dS) spacetime. The role of the emergent time-like direction in dS is played by the size of the entangling sphere. For CFTs with extra conserved charges, e.g., higher spin charges, we show that each charge gives rise to a separate dynamical scalar field in dS.
Holographic tensor networks associated to tilings of (1+1)-dimensional de Sitter spacetime are introduced. Basic features of these networks are discussed, compared, and contrasted with conjectured properties of quantum gravity in de Sitter spacetime. Notably, we highlight a correspondence between the quantum information capacity of the network and the cosmological constant.
Using a noncommutative inspired anti-de Sitter-Einstein-Born-Infeld black hole with both non-commutative mass and charge distributions, we analyse a holographic superconductor in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We show that the coupling of the Born-Infeld parameter and the noncommutative perturbations provides an enhancing mechanism for higher values of the expectation value of the condensate and that noncommutativity counter-balances nonlinearity of the electrodynamics to keep the ratio $ω_g/T_c \approx 8$.
A dynamical aspect of quantum gravity on de Sitter spacetime is investigated by holography or the dS/CFT correspondence. We show that de Sitter spacetime emerges from a free Sp(N) vector model by complexifying the ghost fields and flowing them in parallel to the imaginary axis. We confirm that the emergence of de Sitter spacetime is ensured by conformal symmetry. We also compute the quantum corrections to the cosmological constant up to the next-to-leading order of the 1/N expansion in a proposed holographic approach. As a result the sub-leading corrections have the opposite sign to the classi…
