Using numerical holography, we study the collision, at non-zero impact parameter, of bounded, localized distributions of energy density chosen to mimic relativistic heavy ion collisions, in strongly coupled N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. Both longitudinal and transverse dynamics in the dual field theory are properly described. Using the gravitational description we solve 5D Einstein equations, without dimensionality reducing symmetry restrictions, to find the asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime geometry. Implications of our results on the understanding of early stages of heavy ion collisions, including the development of transverse radial flow, are discussed.
Using holography, we study the collision of planar shock waves in strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. This requires the numerical solution of a dual gravitational initial value problem in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime.
The formation of marginally trapped surfaces in the off-center collision of two shock waves on AdS_D (with D=4,5,6,7 and 8) is studied numerically. We focus on the case when the two waves collide with nonvanishing impact parameter while the sources are located at the same value of the holographic coordinate. In all cases a critical value of the impact parameter is found above which no trapped surface is formed. The numerical results show the existence of a simple scaling relation between the critical impact parameter and the energy of the colliding waves. Using the isometries of AdS_D we relat…
We consider U(1) gauge fields in a slice of AdS_5 with bulk and boundary mass parameters. The zero mode of a bulk U(1) gauge field can be localized either on the UV or IR brane. This leads to a simple model of millicharged particles in which fermions can have arbitrarily small electric charge. In the electroweak sector we also discuss phenomenological implications of a localized U(1)_Y gauge boson. Using the AdS/CFT correspondence we present the 4D holographic interpretation of the 5D model. In particular the photon is shown to be a composite particle when localized near the IR brane, whereas …
We explore the celestial holography proposal for non-trivial asymptotically flat backgrounds including the Coulomb field of a static and spinning point charge, their gravitational counterparts described by the Schwarzschild and Kerr metrics, as well as the Aichelburg-Sexl shockwave and spinning shockwave geometries and their electromagnetic cousins. We compute celestial two-point amplitudes on these Kerr-Schild type backgrounds which have the desirable feature, due to the presence of an external source, that they are non-vanishing for general operator positions and are not constrained by the k…
In this thesis I present numerical studies of entanglement entropy and the quantum null energy condition in strongly coupled far-from-equilibrium quantum states using holography. I give a careful introduction into the numerical methods used and provide the computer codes to compute entanglement entropy and the quantum null energy condition. These methods are then applied to systems of various degrees of complexity, including homogeneous and isotropic far- from-equilibrium quantum quenches dual to Vaidya spacetimes, to homogeneous and anisotropic finite temperature states dual to anisotropic bl…
Using numerical holography, we study the collision of a planar sheet of energy with a bounded localized distribution of energy. The collision, which mimics proton-nucleus collisions, produces a localized lump of debris with transverse size $R \sim 1/T_{\rm eff}$ with $T_{\rm eff}$ the effective temperature, and has large gradients and large transverse flow. Nevertheless, the postcollision evolution is well described by viscous hydrodynamics. Our results bolster the notion that debris produced in proton-nucleus collisions may be modeled using hydrodynamics.
We study chaos in non-Lorentzian field theories, specifically Galilean and Carrollian conformal field theories in two dimensions. In a large central charge limit, we find that the Lyapunov exponent saturates the bound on chaos, conjectured originally for relativistic field theories. We recover the same Lyapunov exponent holographically by a shock-wave calculation in three-dimensional flat space cosmologies, providing further evidence for flat space holography.
We introduce a computational framework to more efficiently calculate the collision of localized shocks in five dimensional asymptotically Anti-de Sitter space. We expand the Einstein equations in transverse gradients and find that our numerical results agree well with exact solutions already at first order in the expansion. Moreover, the Einstein equations at first order in transverse gradients can be decoupled into two sets of differential equations. The bulk fields of one of these sets has only a negligible contribution to boundary observables, such that the computation on each time slice ca…
Braneworld theories are often described as low-energy effective field theories (EFTs) featuring an infinitely thin 3-brane and 4D fields exactly localized on it. We investigate whether an exactly localized braneworld can arise as a limit of a theory of 5D fields. Using a holographic formalism we argue that such limit does not exist in the presence of gravity, therefore implying a discontinuity in the space of EFTs. We then present specific models involving exactly localized fields in which inconsistencies appear, which are solved when fields are taken as quasilocalized. Part of our arguments r…
We study holographic entanglement and information scrambling in de-Sitter (dS) space in the context of the DS/dS correspondence. We find that our previously identified non-local entanglement structure of dS vacua can be extended out of the time-reflection symmetric slice. We extend the geometry to a two-sided configuration and calculate the zero-time mutual information between two intervals on different sides when there is a localized shock wave in the bulk. Interestingly, we find that the information scrambling time saturates the fast scrambler bound proposed by Sekino and Susskind and that t…
In the setting of non-interacting Klein-Gordon fields on asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes, we show that algebras of observables localized in a neighborhood of the boundary are subalgebras of a boundary algebra. The underlying mechanism is directly related to holography for classical fields. In particular, the proof relies on unique continuation theorems at the conformal boundary.
We study collisions between localized shockwaves inside a black hole interior. We give a holographic boundary description of this process in terms of the overlap of two growing perturbations in a shared quantum circuit. The perturbations grow both exponentially as well as ballistically. Due to a competition between different physical effects, the circuit analysis shows dependence on the transverse locations and exhibits four regimes of qualitatively different behaviors. On the gravity side we study properties of the post-collision geometry, using exact calculations in simple setups and estimat…
We study products of precursors of spatially local operators, $W_{x_{n}}(t_{n}) ... W_{x_1}(t_1)$, where $W_x(t) = e^{-iHt} W_x e^{iHt}$. Using chaotic spin-chain numerics and gauge/gravity duality, we show that a single precursor fills a spatial region that grows linearly in $t$. In a lattice system, products of such operators can be represented using tensor networks. In gauge/gravity duality, they are related to Einstein-Rosen bridges supported by localized shock waves. We find a geometrical correspondence between these two descriptions, generalizing earlier work in the spatially homogeneous…
We derive the exact gravitational field of a relativistic particle localized on an $AdS$ 3-brane, with curvature radius $\ell$, in $AdS_5$ bulk with radius $L$. The solution is a gravitational shock wave. We use it to explore the dynamics of locally localized tensor gravitons over a wide range of scales. At distances below $L$ the shock wave looks exactly like the $5D$ $GR$ solution. Beyond $L$ the solution approximates very closely the shock wave in 4D $AdS$ space all the way out to distances $\ell^3/L^2$ along the brane. At distances between $L$ and $\ell$, the effective 4D graviton is a com…
The gravitational shock waves have provided crucial insights into entanglement structures of black holes in the AdS/CFT correspondence. Recent progress on the soft hair physics suggests that these developments from holography may also be applicable to geometries beyond negatively curved spacetime. In this work, we derive a remarkably simple thermodynamic relation which relates the gravitational shock wave to a microscopic area deformation. Our treatment is based on the covariant phase space formalism and is applicable to any Killing horizon in generic static spacetime which is governed by arbi…
We discuss plane wave backgrounds of string theory and their relation to Goedel-like universes. This involves a twisted compactification along the direction of propagation of the wave, which induces closed timelike curves. We show, however, that no such curves are geodesic. The particle geodesics and the preferred holographic screens we find are qualitatively different from those in the Goedel-like universes. Of the two types of preferred screen, only one is suited to dimensional reduction and/or T-duality, and this provides a ``holographic protection'' of chronology. The other type of screen,…
We construct exact gravitational field solutions for a relativistic particle localized on a tensional brane in brane-induced gravity. They are a generalization of gravitational shock waves in 4D de Sitter space. We provide the metrics for both the normal branch and the self-inflating branch DGP braneworlds, and compare them to the 4D Einstein gravity solution and to the case when gravity resides only in the 5D bulk, without any brane-localized curvature terms. At short distances the wave profile looks the same as in four dimensions. The corrections appear only far from the source, where they d…
It has been shown that non-Abelian vortex string supported in four dimensional (4D) ${\mathcal N}=2$ supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) with the U(2) gauge group and $N_f = 4$ quark flavors becomes a critical superstring. This string propagates in the ten dimensional space formed by a product of the flat 4D space and an internal space given by a Calabi-Yau non-compact threefold, namely, the conifold. The spectrum of closed string states of the associated string theory was obtained using the equivalence between the critical string on the conifold and the non-critical string on the semi-infinite cigar de…
We find the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor in the CFT corresponding to a moving black hole in AdS. Boosting the black hole to the speed of light, keeping the total energy fixed, yields a gravitational shock wave in AdS. The analogous procedure on the field theory side leads to ``light cone'' states, i.e., states with energy-momentum tensor localized on the light cone. The correspondence between the gravitational shock wave and these light cone states provides a useful tool for testing causality. We show, in several examples, how the CFT reproduces the causal relations in AdS.
We study gravitational shock waves using scattering amplitude techniques. After first reviewing the derivation in General Relativity as an ultrarelativistic boost of a Schwarzschild solution, we provide an alternative derivation by exploiting a novel relation between scattering amplitudes and solutions to Einstein's field equations. We prove that gravitational shock waves arise from the classical part of a three point function with two massless scalars and a graviton. The region where radiation is localized has a distributional profile and it is now recovered in a natural way, thus bypassing t…
In this paper, following hep-th/0501028, we present a detailed derivation and discussion of the exact gravitational field solutions for a relativistic particle localized on a tensional brane in brane-induced gravity. Our derivation yields the metrics for both the normal branch and the self-inflating branch DGP braneworlds. They generalize the 4D gravitational shock waves in de Sitter space, and so we compare them to the corresponding 4D General Relativity solution and to the case when gravity resides only in the 5D bulk, and there are no brane-localized graviton kinetic terms. We write down th…
We consider reflected entropy in a thermofield double state perturbed by a heavy operator insertion. For sufficiently early operator insertions the dual geometry can be described by a localized shock wave geometry. We calculate the entanglement wedge cross-section in this geometry for symmetric intervals and find that it matches precisely with the CFT result for sufficiently late times. Our result exhibits a plateau before going to zero, a behaviour similar to the one observed recently in the context of global quantum quenches. We find that at high temperatures this behaviour is properly captu…
The scrambling time and its delay are calculated using holography in an asymptotically AdS black hole solution of the gauged Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton-Axion (EMDA) theory, the dyonic Kerr-Sen-AdS$_4$ black hole, perturbed by rotating and charged shock waves along the equator. The leading term of the scrambling time for a black hole with large entropy is logarithmic in the entropy and hence supports the fast scrambling conjecture for this black hole solution, which implies that the system under consideration is chaotic. We also find that the instantaneous minimal Lyapunov index is bounded by $κ=…
We construct static vacuum localized black holes and non-uniform black strings in ten spacetime dimensions, where one of the dimension is compactified on circle. We study the phase diagram of black objects with these boundary conditions, especially near the critical point where localized black holes and non-uniform black strings merge. Remarkably, we find that the merger happens at a cusp in the phase diagram. We verify that the critical geometry is controlled by a Ricci-flat double cone as previously predicted. However, unlike the lower dimensional cases, we find that physical quantities appr…
Using the Calogero model as an example, we show that the transport in interacting non-dissipative electronic systems is essentially non-linear. Non-linear effects are due to the curvature of the electronic spectrum near the Fermi energy. As is typical for non-linear systems, propagating wave packets are unstable. At finite time shock wave singularities develop, the wave packet collapses, and oscillatory features arise. They evolve into regularly structured localized pulses carrying a fractionally quantized charge - {\it soliton trains}. We briefly discuss perspectives of observation of Quantum…
A gravitational shock wave is a solution to Einstein equations describing the gravitational field of a massless particle. We obtain such a geometry for a particle moving on a AdS_3 brane embedded in a AdS_4 bulk (the lower dimensional version of the "locally localized gravity" model of Karch and Randall). In order to do this, we use two different techniques. First, we solve directly Einstein equations sourced by a massless particle. Then we boost to the speed of light the AdS_3 brane black hole solution of Emparan et al while sending its mass parameter to zero. Surprisingly, we obtain two diff…
