We discuss new types of instabilities of D=4 electrically charged AdS-Reissner-Nordström black branes that involve neutral pseudo-scalars. The instabilities spontaneously break translational invariance and are associated with the dual three-dimensional CFTs, at finite temperature and fixed chemical potential with respect to a global abelian symmetry, acquiring striped phases. We show that such instabilities are present for the infinite class of skew-whiffed $AdS_4\times SE_7$ solutions of D=11 supergravity, albeit at a lower temperature than the known superfluid instabilities.
We study striped phases in holographic insulator/superconductor transition by considering a spatially modulated chemical potential in AdS soliton background. Generally striped phases can develop above a critical chemical potential. When the constant leading term in the chemical potential is set to zero, a discontinuity in the plot of charge density versus chemical potential is observed in the limit of large wave vector. We explain this discontinuity using an analytical approach. When the constant leading term in the chemical potential is present, the critical chemical potential is larger than …
Recently, it has been proposed that the butterfly velocity - a speed at which quantum information propagates - may provide a fundamental bound on diffusion constants in dirty incoherent metals. We analytically compute the charge diffusion constant and the butterfly velocity in charge-neutral holographic matter with long wavelength "hydrodynamic" disorder in a single spatial direction. In this limit, we find that the butterfly velocity does not set a sharp lower bound for the charge diffusion constant.
We study the interplay between the stripe order and the superconducting order in a strongly coupled striped superconductor using gauge/gravity duality. In particular, we study the effects of inhomogeneity introduced by the stripe order on the superconducting transition temperature beyond the mean field level by including the effects of backreaction onto the spacetime geometry in the dual gravitational picture. We find that inhomogeneity \emph{enhances} the critical temperature relative to its value for the uniform system.
We construct a holographic model describing the striped superconductor (SSC), which is characterized by the presence of pair density waves (PDW). We explicitly demonstrate that the SSC phase is implemented as the intertwined phase of charge density waves (CDW) order and uniform superconducting (SC) order. Theinterplay of PDW order, CDW order as well as the uniform SC order in SSC phase is studied. It is found that the PDW order is prominent when both CDW order and uniform SC order are balanced. The critical temperature of CDW becomes higher in the presence of the uniform SC order, but its char…
We consider a holographic description of a system of strongly-coupled fermions in 2+1 dimensions based on a D7-brane probe in the background of D3-branes. The black hole embedding represents a Fermi-like liquid. We study the excitations of the Fermi liquid system. Above a critical density which depends on the temperature, the system becomes unstable towards an inhomogeneous modulated phase which is similar to a charge density and spin wave state. The essence of this instability can be effectively described by a Maxwell-axion theory with a background electric field. We also consider the fate of…
We study inhomogeneous solutions of a 3+1-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-scalar theory. Our results provide a holographic model of superconductivity in the presence of a charge density wave sourced by a modulated chemical potential. We find that below a critical temperature superconducting stripes develop. We show that they are thermodynamically favored over the normal state by computing the grand canonical potential. We investigate the dependence of the critical temperature on the modulation's wave vector, which characterizes the inhomogeneity. We find that it is qualitatively similar to that e…
At finite charge density certain holographic models exhibit the spontaneous breaking of translational invariance resulting in an inhomogeneous phase. We follow up on recent numerical work, reporting results for a larger class of cohomogeneity two black branes in AdS, dual to a holographic striped phase. We construct the continuous moduli space of inhomogeneous black branes as a function of the temperature. Minimising the free energy we determine the dominant striped solutions, revealing a growth in the stripe size as the system is cooled. We discuss the thermodynamic properties of this line of…
We study the gravity duals of striped holographic superconductors in the AdS black hole and AdS soliton backgrounds. We show the dependences of the condensation and the critical temperature/critical chemical potential on the inhomogeneity in these two different spacetimes. By exploring the dynamics of the normal phase through the scalar field perturbation, we argue that the pair susceptibility and the conductivity can be possible phenomenological indications to disclose the property of inhomogeneity.
We construct inhomogeneous charged black branes in AdS, holographically dual to a phase at finite chemical potential with spontaneously broken translation invariance in one direction. These are obtained numerically, solving PDEs for the fully backreacted system. Fixing the periodicity scale, we find a second order phase transition to the inhomogeneous phase. We comment on the properties of the state emerging at low temperatures. For some models we demonstrate the existence of a branch of striped solutions but no continuous phase transition.
We discuss new types of second order phase transitions in holography by constructing striped black holes in D=4 with $AdS_{4}$ asymptotics. In the context of $AdS/CFT$, they provide the gravity duals to field theory phases in which translational symmetry is spontaneously broken due to the formation of current density waves. These black holes are associated to three dimensional CFTs at finite temperature and deformed by a uniform chemical potential. We numerically solve a non-linear system of PDEs in order to construct the black hole geometries and extract some of their thermodynamic properties…
We study striped states in the quantum Hall system around half-filled high Landau levels and obtain the optimal orientation of the striped state in the presence of an external unidirectional periodic potential. It is shown that the optimal orientation is orthogonal to the external modulation in the Coulomb dominant regime (the orthogonal phase) and is parallel in the external modulation dominant regime (the parallel phase). The phase boundary of these two phases is determined numerically in the parameter space of the strength and wave number of the external modulation at the half-filled third …
We use a holographic theory to model and study the competition of four phases: an antiferromagnetic phase, a superconducting phase, a metallic phase and a striped phase, using as control parameters temperature and a doping-like parameter. We analyse the various instabilities and determine the possible phases. One class of phase diagrams, that we analyse in detail, is similar to that of high-temperature superconductors as well as other strange metal materials.
We analyze the quasinormal modes of the D2-D8' model of 2+1-dimensional, strongly-coupled, charged fermions in a background magnetic field and at nonzero density. The model is known to include a quantum Hall phase with integer filling fraction. As expected, we find a hydrodynamical diffusion mode at small momentum and the nonzero-temperature holographic zero sound, which becomes massive above a critical magnetic field. We confirm the previously-known thermodynamic instability. In addition, we discover an instability at low temperature, large mass, and in a charge density and magnetic field ran…
We construct cohomogeneity-three, finite temperature stationary black brane solutions dual to a field theory exhibiting checkerboard order. The checkerboards form a backreacted part of the bulk solution, and are obtained numerically from the coupled Einstein-Maxwell-scalar PDE system. They arise spontaneously and without the inclusion of an explicit lattice. The phase exhibits both charge and global U(1)-current modulation, which are periodic in two spatial directions. The current circulates within each checkerboard plaquette. We explore the competition with striped phases, finding first-order…
We use holography to compute the conductivity in an inhomogeneous charged scalar background. We work in the probe limit of the four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory coupled to a charged scalar. The background has zero charge density and is constructed by turning on a scalar source deformation with a striped profile. We solve for fluctuations by making use of a Fourier series expansion. This approach turns out to be useful for understanding which couplings become important in our inhomogeneous background. At zero temperature, the conductivity is computed analytically in a small amplitude exp…
We construct inhomogeneous asymptotically AdS black hole solutions corresponding to the spontaneous breaking of translational invariance and the formation of striped order in the boundary field theory. We find that the system undergoes a second order phase transition in both the fixed density and fixed chemical potential ensembles, for sufficiently large values of the axion coupling. We investigate the phase structure as function of the temperature, axion coupling and the stripe width. The bulk solutions have striking geometrical features related to a magnetoelectric effect associated with the…
We present a numerical study of the λϕ^{4} model in three Euclidean dimensions, where the two spatial coordinates are non-commutative (NC). We first show the explicit phase diagram of this model on a lattice. The ordered regime splits into a phase of uniform order and a ``striped phase''. Then we discuss the dispersion relation, which allows us to introduce a dimensionful lattice spacing. Thus we can study a double scaling limit to zero lattice spacing and infinite volume, which keeps the non-commutativity parameter constant. The dispersion relation in the disordered phase stabilizes in this l…
We study the formation of inhomogeneous order in the Einstein-Maxwell-axion system, dual to a 2+1 dimensional field theory that exhibits a spontaneously generated current density, momentum density and modulated scalar operator. Below the critical temperature, the Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black hole becomes unstable and stripes form in the bulk and on the boundary. The bulk geometry possesses striking geometrical features, including a modulated horizon that tends to pinch off as T -> 0. On a domain of fixed length, we find a second order phase transition to the striped solution in each of the gra…
We consider a holographic model constructed from the intersecting brane configuration D4-$\bar{\rm{D4}}$/D4 in noncritical string theory. We study the chiral phase diagram of this holographic QCD-like model with a finite baryon chemical potential through the supergravity dual approximation.
We study different phases in the holographic model of d-wave superconductor. These are described by solutions to the classical equations of motion found in different ansatze. Apart from the known homogeneous d-wave superconducting phase we find three new solutions. Two of them represent two distinct families of the spatially modulated solutions, which realize the charge density wave phases in the dual theory. The third one is the new homogeneous phase with nonzero anapole moment. These phases are relevant to the physics of cuprate high-Tc superconductor in pseudogap region. While the d-wave ph…
We study the holographic entanglement measures such as the holographic mutual information, HMI, and the holographic entanglement of purification, EoP, in a holographic QCD model at finite temperature and zero chemical potential. This model can realize various types of phase transitions including crossover, first order and second order phase transitions. We use the HMI and EoP to probe the phase structure of this model and we find that at the critical temperature they can characterize the phase structure of the model. Moreover we obtain the critical exponent using the HMI and EoP.
We use the matching method to investigate the first-order phase transition in holographic superconductor and superfluid. We first use the simple holographic superconductor model to describe the matching method and mention how to see the first-order phase transition. Next, we study the holographic superconductor with Stückelberg term and see that the analytic results indicate the existence of first-order phase transition. Finally, we study the holographic superfluid and show that the first-order phase transition can be found for some values of parameters. We determine the critical value analyti…
Using a five dimensional AdS soliton in an Einstein-Yang-Mills theory with SU(2) gauge group we study p-wave holographic insulator/superconductor phase transition. To explore the phase structure of the model we consider the system in the probe limit as well as fully back reacted solutions. We will also study zero temperature limit of the p-wave holographic superconductor in four dimensions.
We show examples of a striped superfluid in a simple $λφ^4$ model at finite velocity and chemical potential with a global $U(1)$ or $U(2)$ symmetry. Whenever the chemical potential is large enough we find flowing homogeneous solutions and static inhomogeneous solutions at any arbitrary small velocity. For the $U(1)$ model the inhomogeneous solutions found are energetically favourable for large enough superfluid velocity and the homogeneous and inhomogeneous phases are connected via a first order phase transitions. On the other hand, the $U(2)$ model becomes striped as soon as we turn on the ve…
In this paper, we investigate the holographic phase transition with dark matter sector in the AdS black hole background away from the probe limit. We disclose the properties of phases mostly from the holographic topological entanglement entropy of the system. We find the entanglement entropy is a good probe to the critical temperature and the order of the phase transition in the general model. The behaviors of entanglement entropy at large strip size suggest that the area law still holds with dark matter sector. We also conclude that the holographic topological entanglement entropy is useful i…
We explore the phase structure for defect theories in full generality using the gauge/gravity correspondence. On the gravity side, the systems are constructed by introducing M (probe) D(p+4-2k)-branes in a background generated by N Dp-branes to obtain a codimension-k intersection. The dual gauge theory is a U(N) Supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on a (1+p-k)-dimensional defect with both adjoint and fundamental degrees of freedom. We focus on the phase structure in the chemical potential versus temperature plane. We observe the existence of two universality classes for holographic gauge theories…
We consider the Schwinger effect in confining phase by using a holographic setup. The potential analysis is performed for the confining D3-brane and D4-brane backgrounds. We find the critical electric field above which there is no potential barrier and the system becomes unstable catastrophically. An intriguing point is that no Schwinger effect occurs when the electric field is smaller than the confining string tension.
We study four-dimensional interacting fermions in a strong magnetic field, using the holographic Sakai-Sugimoto model of intersecting D4 and D8 branes in the deconfined, chiral-symmetric parallel phase. We find that as the magnetic field is varied, while staying in the parallel phase, the fermions exhibit a first-order phase transition in which their magnetization jumps discontinuously. Properties of this transition are consistent with a picture in which some of the fermions jump to the lowest Landau level. Similarities to known magnetic phase transitions are discussed.
We analyse the infinite class of d=3 CFTs dual to skew-whiffed AdS_4 X SE_7 solutions of D=11 supergravity at finite temperature and charge density and in the presence of a magnetic field. We construct black hole solutions corresponding to the unbroken phase, and at zero temperature some of these become dyonic domain walls of an Einstein-Maxwell-pseudo-scalar theory interpolating between AdS_4 in the UV and new families of dyonic AdS_2 X R^2 solutions in the IR. The black holes exhibit both diamagnetic and paramagnetic behaviour. We analyse superfluid and striped instabilities and show that fo…
In this article, we study the finite temperature properties of a 10-D version of a hardwall model for QCD. Introducing fundamental matter via probe D7-branes and separate cutoffs for the branes and the bulk, we present a detailed exploration of the phases for varying temperature and quark mass. Finite thermodynamic quantities are calculated using the procedure of holographic renormalization and used to characterize the phases. Finally, by fitting glueball and vector meson masses, we show how a unique phase diagram can be isolated.
We studied holographic insulator/superconductor phase transition in the framework of Born-Infeld electrodynamics both numerically and analytically. First we numerically study the effects of the Born-Infeld electrodynamics on the phase transition, find that the critical chemical potential is not changed by the Born-Infeld parameter. Then we employ the variational method for the Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problem to analytically study the phase transition. The analytical results obtained are found to be consistent with the numerical results.
We present a non-perturbative study of the lambda phi**4 model on a non-commutative plane. The lattice regularised form can be mapped onto a Hermitian matrix model, which enables Monte Carlo simulations. Numerical data reveal the phase diagram; at large lambda it contains a "striped phase", which is absent in the commutative case. We explore the question whether or not this phenomenon persists in a Double Scaling Limit (DSL), which extrapolates simultaneously to the continuum and to infinite volume, at a fixed non-commutativity parameter. To this end, we introduce a dimensional lattice spacing…
We investigate some phenomenological aspects of the holographic models based on the tachyon Dirac-Born-Infeld action in the AdS space-time. These holographic theories model strongly interacting fermions and feature dynamical mass generation and symmetry breaking. We show that they can be viewed as models of holographic walking technicolor and compute the Peskin-Takeuchi S-parameter and masses of lightest technimesons for a variety of the tachyon potentials. We also investigate the phase structure at finite temperature and charge density. Finally, we comment on the holographic Wilsonian RG in t…
We consider the Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton system with an arbitrary kinetic gauge function and a dilaton potential. A family of analytic solutions is obtained by the potential reconstruction method. We then study its holographic dual QCD model. The kinetic gauge function can be fixed by requesting the linear Regge spectrum of mesons. We calculate the free energy to obtain the phase diagram of the holographic QCD model.
We calculate the holographic entanglement entropy for the holographic QCD phase diagram considered in [Knaute, Yaresko, Kämpfer (2017), arXiv:1702.06731] and explore the resulting qualitative behavior over the temperature-chemical potential plane. In agreement with the thermodynamic result, the phase diagram exhibits the same critical point as the onset of a first-order phase transition curve. We compare the phase diagram of the entanglement entropy to that of the thermodynamic entropy density and find a striking agreement in the vicinity of the critical point. Thus, the holographic entangleme…
In this paper, we suppose that the universe begins in a holographic thermal equilibrium phase with the diverged correlation length, and the phase transition to the radiation phase of standard cosmology goes with the abrupt reducing of correlation length. In this case, the primordial perturbations may be induced by thermal fluctuations in this holographic phase. We calculate the spectra of this holographic primordial perturbations, and find that the scalar spectrum has a slightly red tilt and the tensor perturbation amplitude has a moderate ratio, which may be tested in coming observations. The…
We discuss phases of gauge theories in the holographic context, and formulate a criterion for the existence of a Higgs phase, where the gauge redundancy is "spontaneously broken", in purely bulk language. This condition, the existence of a finite tension solitonic string representing a narrow magnetic flux tube, is necessary for a bulk theory to be interpreted as a Higgs phase of a boundary gauge theory. We demonstrate the existence of such solitons in both top-down and bottom-up examples of holographic theories. In particular, we numerically construct new solitonic solutions in AdS black hole…
Topological phases of matter have recently attracted a rather notable attention in the community dealing with the holographic methods applied to strongly interacting condensed matter systems. In particular, holographic models for gapless Weyl and multi-Weyl semimetals, characterized on a lattice by the monopole-antimonopole defects of the Berry curvature in momentum space, were recently formulated. In this paper, motivated by the quest for finding topological holographic phases, we show that holographic model for multi-Weyl semimetals features a rather rich landscape of phases. In particular, …
We consider holographic superconductors in a broad class of massive gravity backgrounds. These theories provide a holographic description of a superconductor with broken translational symmetry. Such models exhibit a rich phase structure: depending on the values of the temperature and the disorder strength the boundary system can be in superconducting, normal metallic or normal pseudoinsulating phases. Furthermore the system supports interesting collective excitation of the charge carriers, which appears in the normal phase, persists in the superconducting phase, but eventually gets destroyed b…
In this paper, we study the holographic s+p model in 5-dimensional bulk gravity with the Gauss-Bonnet term. We work in the probe limit and give the $Δ$-T phase diagrams at three different values of the Gauss-Bonnet coefficient to show the effect of the Gauss-Bonnet term. We also construct the P-T phase diagrams for the holographic system using two different definitions of the pressure and compare the results.
We study the fully nonlinear time evolution of a holographic system possessing a first order phase transition. The initial state is chosen in the spinodal region of the phase diagram, and includes an inhomogeneous perturbation in one of the field theory directions. The final state of the time evolution shows a clear phase separation in the form of domain formation. The results indicate the existence of a very rich class of inhomogeneous black hole solutions.
