It has been conjectured that the speed of sound in holographic models with UV fixed points has an upper bound set by the value of the quantity in conformal field theory. If true, this would set stringent constraints for the presence of strongly coupled quark matter in the cores of physical neutron stars, as the existence of two-solar-mass stars appears to demand a very stiff Equation of State. In this article, we present a family of counterexamples to the speed of sound conjecture, consisting of strongly coupled theories at finite density. The theories we consider include ${\cal N}=4$ super Yang-Mills at finite R-charge density and non-zero gaugino masses, while the holographic duals are Einstein-Maxwell theories with a minimally coupled scalar in a charged black hole geometry. We show that for a small breaking of conformal invariance, the speed of sound approaches the conformal value from above at large chemical potentials.
I give a brief introduction to the AdS/CFT correspondence targeted at heavy-ion physicists. I also review some insights to our understanding of the early stages of heavy-ion collisions coming from selected studies made using methods of the AdS/CFT correspondence.
We review some of the recent progress in our understanding of the physics of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions due to applications of AdS/CFT correspondence.
This is a comment to hep-th/0703243. The paper determined the relaxation time tau_pi of the shear viscous stress for the N=4 SYM from AdS/CFT correspondence. The purpose of this comment is to point out that the value of tau_pi is 3 times larger than their result if one takes into account an additional term in the hydrodynamic equation.
In this talk I review some selected applications of the AdS/CFT correspondence to the study of nonequillibrium dynamics of strongly coupled plasma. I briefly describe the AdS/CFT methods and five recent studies dealing with various features of plasma evolution, in particular the transition to hydrodynamics, thermalization, very high order hydrodynamics, the dynamics of shock wave collisions and preequilibrium radial flow.
This is the draft/updated version of a textbook on "real-world" applications of the AdS/CFT duality for beginning graduate students in particle physics and for researchers in the other fields. The aim of this book is to provide background materials such as string theory, general relativity, nuclear physics, nonequilibrium physics, and condensed-matter physics as well as some key applications of the AdS/CFT duality in a single textbook. Contents: (1) Introduction, (2) General relativity and black holes, (3) Black holes and thermodynamics, (4) Strong interaction and gauge theories, (5) The road …
In these pedagogical lectures, we present the techniques of the AdS/CFT correspondence which can be applied to the study of real time dynamics of a strongly coupled plasma system. These methods are based on solving gravitational Einstein's equations on the string/gravity side of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We illustrate these techniques with applications to the boost-invariant expansion of a plasma system. We emphasize the common underlying AdS/CFT description both in the large proper time regime where hydrodynamic dynamics dominates, and in the small proper time regime where the dynamics is f…
The AdS/CFT correspondence and a classical test string approximation are used to calculate the drag force on an external quark moving in a thermal plasma of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory. This computation is motivated by the phenomenon of jet-quenching in relativistic heavy ion collisions.
The most straightforward use of AdS/CFT correspondence gives versions of QCD where quarks are in adjoint representations. Using an asymmetric orbifold approach we obtain nonsupersymmetric QCD with four quark flavors in fundamental representations of color.
It has been proposed that Randall-Sundrum models can be holographically described by a regularized (broken) conformal field theory. We analyze the foundations of this duality using a regularized version of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We compare two- and three-point correlation functions and find the same behaviour in both descriptions. In particular, we show that the regularization of the deformed CFT generates kinetic terms for the sources, which hence can be naturally treated as dynamical fields. We also discuss the counterterms required for two- and three-point correlators in the renormaliz…
We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to compute the energy spectrum of heavy-light mesons in a N=2 SU(N) super Yang-Mills theory with two massive hypermultiplets. In the heavy quark limit, similar to QCD, we find that the excitation energies are independent of the heavy quark mass. We also make some remarks about related AdS/CFT models of flavor with less supersymmetry.
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence we consider the retarded Green's function in the background of rotating near-extremal AdS$_4$ black holes. Following the canonical AdS/CFT dictionary into the asymptotic boundary we get a CFT$_3$ result. We also take a new route and zoom in on the near-horizon region, blow up this region and show that it yields a CFT$_2$ result. We argue that the decoupling of the near-horizon region is akin to the decoupling of the near-throat region of a D3-brane, which led to the original formulation of the AdS/CFT correspondence, thus implying that the Kerr/CFT corresponden…
Using the AdS/CFT correspondence and the eikonal approximation, we evaluate the elastic parton-parton scattering amplitude at large $N$ and strong coupling $g^2N$ in N=4 SYM. We obtain a scattering amplitude with a Regge behavior that unitarizes at large $\sqrt{s}$.
Conformal deformations manifest in the AdS/CFT correspondence as boundary conditions on the AdS field. Heretofore, double-trace deformations have been the primary focus in this context. To better understand multitrace deformations, we revisit the relationship between the generating AdS partition function for a free bulk theory and the boundary CFT partition function subject to arbitrary conformal deformations. The procedure leads us to a formalism that constructs bulk fields from boundary operators. Using this formalism, we independently replicate the holographic RG flow narrative to go on to …
We calculate the scalar quasinormal modes of warped $AdS_3$ black holes analytically. We find that in general they are not in agreement with the prediction of the usual AdS/CFT correspondence. Nevertheless, for the black hole not deviating far from BTZ black hole, the quasinormal frequencies are still well consistent with AdS/CFT correspondence.
In this letter we examine some structural aspects of the AdS/CFT such as the way of obtaining the expectation value of product of operators of the CFT, and ideas that should be considered when a proof of AdS/CFT is under consideration.
The AdS/CFT correspondence is developed from classical solutions on AdS_5 with two boundaries. The corresponding limits and the reduction of degrees of freedom are discussed, as well as the required renormalization on the field theory side. The Hamiltonian first-order approach towards the solution of coupled gravitational/matter equations of motion is introduced, and the RG interpretation is exposed. Finally we discuss a recent approach towards a naturally vanishing cosmological constant which is based on the AdS/RG correspondence.
In the context of AdS3/CFT2, we address spacetimes with a certain sort of internal infinity as typified by the extreme BTZ black hole. The internal infinity is a null circle lying at the end of the black hole's infinite throat. We argue that such spacetimes may be described by a product CFT of the form CFT-L * CFT-R, where CFT-R is associated with the asymptotically AdS boundary while CFT-L is associated with the null circle. Our particular calculations analyze the CFT dual of the extreme BTZ black hole in a linear toy model of AdS3/CFT2. Since the BTZ black hole is a quotient of AdS3, the dua…
For an effective AdS theory, we present a simple prescription to compute the renormalization of its dual boundary field theory. In particular, we define anomalous dimension holographically as the dependence of the wave-function renormalization factor on the radial cutoff in the Poincare patch of AdS. With this definition, the anomalous dimensions of both single- and double- trace operators are calculated. Three different dualities are considered with the field theory being CFT, CFT with a double-trace deformation and spontaneously broken CFT. For the second dual pair, we compute scaling correc…
We compute fluctuations in the modular energy of the vacuum associated with a Rindler-wedge in AdS spacetime in the context of AdS/CFT. We discuss the possible effect of these energy fluctuations on the spacetime geometry, and on the traversal time of a light beam propagating from the boundary to the bulk and back.
We study the pathologies in AdS black branes in Lovelock theory. More precisely, we examine the conditions that AdS black branes have the naked singularity, the ghost instability and the dynamical instability. From the point of view of the AdS/CFT correspondence, the pathologies in AdS black branes indicate the pathologies in the corresponding CFT. Hence, we need to be careful when we apply AdS/CFT in Lovelock theory to various phenomena such as the shear viscosity to entropy ratio in strongly coupled quantum filed theory.
We introduce the AdS/CFT correspondence as a natural extension of QFT in a fixed AdS background. We start by reviewing some general concepts of CFT, including the embedding space formalism. We then consider QFT in a fixed AdS background and show that one can define boundary operators that enjoy very similar properties as in a CFT, except for the lack of a stress tensor. Including a dynamical metric in AdS generates a boundary stress tensor and completes the CFT axioms. We also discuss some applications of the bulk geometric intuition to strongly coupled QFT. Finally, we end with a review of th…
We find new twisted Yangian symmetries of the AdS/CFT reflection matrices for the Y=0 maximal giant graviton and D5-brane. These new symmetries originate from the known secret symmetries of the Yangian symmetry of the AdS/CFT S-matrix.
Mack has conjectured that all conformal field theories are equivalent to string theories. We explore the example of the two-dimensional minimal model CFTs and confirm that the Mellin transformed amplitudes have the desired properties of string theory in three-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime.
The AdS/CFT correspondence is established for the AdS_3 space compactified on a solid torus with the CFT field on the boundary. Correlation functions that correspond to the bulk theory at finite temperature are obtained in the regularization a'la Gubser, Klebanov, and Polyakov. The BTZ black hole solutions in AdS_3 are T-dual to the solution in the AdS_3 space without singularity.
This is a pedagogical introduction to the AdS/CFT correspondence, based on lectures delivered by the author at the third IDPASC school. Starting with the conceptual basis of the holographic dualities, the subject is developed emphasizing some concrete topics, which are discussed in detail. A very brief introduction to string theory is provided, containing the minimal ingredients to understand the origin of the AdS/CFT duality. Other topics covered are the holographic calculation of correlation functions, quark-antiquark potentials and transport coefficients.
We discuss analytic continuation from d-dimensional Lorentzian de Sitter (dS$_d$) to d-dimensional Lorentzian anti-de Sitter (AdS$_{d}$) spacetime. We show that AdS$_{d}$, with opposite signature of the metric, can be obtained as analytic continuation of a portion of dS$_d$. This implies that the dynamics of (positive square-mass) scalar particles in AdS$_{d}$ can be obtained from the dynamics of tachyons in dS$_d$. We discuss this correspondence both at the level of the solution of the field equations and of the Green functions. The AdS/CFT duality is obtained as analytic continuation of the …
We study real-time correlators in the warped AdS/CFT correspondence. We apply the prescription used in the usual AdS/CFT correspondence and obtain the retarded Green's functions for the scalar and vector fields in the spacelike warped and the null warped black hole backgrounds. We find that the retarded Green's functions and the cross sections are well consistent with the predictions from dual CFT. Our results not only support strongly the conjectured warped AdS/CFT correspondence, but also show that the usual relativistic AdS/CFT prescription of obtaining the real-time correlators remain effe…
We discuss a possible relation between singletons in $AdS$ space and logarithmic conformal field theories at the boundary of $AdS$. It is shown that the bulk Lagrangian for singleton field (singleton dipole) induces on the boundary the two-point correlation function for logarithmic pair. Bulk interpretation of mixing between logarithmic operator $D$ and zero mode operator $C$ under the scale transformation is discussed as well as some other issues.
We discuss dilatonic gravity (bulk theory) from the point of view of (generalized) AdS/CFT correspondence. Self-consistent dilatonic background is considered. It may be understood as two boundaries space where AdS boundary appears as infinite boundary and new (singular) boundary occurs at short distances. The two-point correlation function and conformal dimension for minimal and dilaton coupled scalar are found. Even for minimal scalar, the conformal dimension is found to be different on above two boundaries. Hence, new CFT appears in AdS/CFT correspondence at short distances. AdS/CFT correspo…
By taking the interacting spinor-scalar theory on the $AdS_{d+1}$ space we calculate the boundary CFT correlation functions using AdS/CFT correspondence.
We extend the non-relativistic AdS/CFT correspondence to the fermionic fields. In particular we study the two point function of a fermionic operator in non-relativistic CFTs by making use of a massive fermion propagating in geometries with Schrodinger group isometry. Although the boundary of the geometries with Schrodinger group isometry differ from that in AdS geometries where the dictionary of AdS/CFT is established, using the general procedure of AdS/CFT correspondence, we see that the resultant two point function has the expected form for fermionic operators in non-relativistic CFTs, thoug…
Using the AdS-CFT correspondence we calculate the two point function of CFT energy momentum tensors. The AdS gravitons are considered by explicitly solving the Dirichlet boundary value problem for $x_0=ε$. We consider this treatment as complementary to existing work, with which we make contact.
The dS/CFT correspondence differs from its AdS/CFT counterpart in some ways, yet is strikingly similar to it in many others. For example, both involve CFTs defined on connected spaces (despite the fact that the conformal boundary of deSitter space is not connected), and both impose constraints on scalar masses (Strominger's bound for deSitter, and the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound for Anti-deSitter). We argue that these similarities can be explored and exploited using a slight extension of the Euclidean approach to AdS/CFT. The methods are particularly compatible with Hull's embedding of deSitt…
We compute the boundary stress-energies of time-dependent asymptotically AdS spacetimes in 5 and 7 dimensions, and find that their traces are equal to the respective 4 and 6 dimensional field-theoretic trace anomalies. This provides good supporting evidence in favour of the AdS/CFT correspondence in time-dependent backgrounds.
Holographic Renormalization Group (RG) in nine dimensions is considered. The d8 holographic conformal anomaly is found. It should correspond to d8 CFT in AdS_9/CFT_8 correspondence. The comparison of holographic and QFT anomalies in d8 de Sitter space is done. It may give the indication for rigorous AdS_9/CFT_8 correspondence proposal.
We investigate the nature of the AdS/CFT duality between a subregion of the bulk and its boundary. In global AdS/CFT in the classical G_N=0 limit, the duality reduces to a boundary value problem that can be solved by restricting to one-point functions of local operators in the CFT. We show that the solution of this boundary value problem depends continuously on the CFT data. In contrast, the AdS-Rindler subregion cannot be continuously reconstructed from local CFT data restricted to the associated boundary region. Motivated by related results in the mathematics literature, we posit that a cont…
The loop expansion of the effective action is used to evaluate quantum corrections to a scalar field theory (massive phi^4 model) on AdS. We evaluate one loop corrections and show that they preserve conformal invariance of the boundary theory as conjectured by AdS/CFT correspondence.
The attempt to understand if AdS/CFT correspondence may be realized as the one between some AdS-like cosmological space and CFT living on the boundary is made. In order to obtain such cosmology we exchange the time and radial coordinates in d5 Schwarzschild-anti de Sitter (S-AdS) BH (with corresponding signature change). The test on proportionality of free energies from such d5 cosmological space (after AdS/CFT identification of parameters) and from ${\cal N}=4$ SU(N) super Yang-Mills quantum theory is successfully passed.
In this paper we resolve a contradiction posed in a recent paper by Horowitz and Hubeny. The contradiction concerns the way small objects in AdS space are described in the holographic dual CFT description.
We study implications of the weak gravity conjecture in the AdS/CFT correspondence. Unlike in Minkowski spacetime, AdS spacetime has a physical length scale, so that the conjecture must be generalized with an additional parameter. We discuss possible generalizations and translate them into the language of dual CFTs, which take the form of inequalities involving the dimension and charge of an operator as well as the current and energy-momentum tensor central charges. We then test these inequalities against various CFTs to see if they are universally obeyed by all the CFTs. We find that certain …
It has been suggested that the quantum generalization of the Wald entropy for an extremal black hole is the logarithm of the ground state degeneracy of a dual quantum mechanics in a fixed charge sector. We test this proposal for supersymmetric extremal BTZ black holes for which there is an independent definition of the quantum entropy as the logarithm of the degeneracy of appropriate states in the dual 1+1 dimensional superconformal field theory. We find that the two proposals agree. This analysis also suggests a possible route to deriving the OSV conjecture.
We show that suitably regulated multi-trace primary states in large N CFTs behave like `in' and `out' scattering states in the flat-space limit of AdS. Their transition matrix elements approach the exact scattering amplitudes for the bulk theory, providing a natural CFT definition of the flat space S-Matrix. We study corrections resulting from the AdS curvature and particle propagation far from the center of AdS, and show that AdS simply provides an IR regulator that disappears in the flat space limit.
The prescription of the AdS/CFT correspondence is refined by using a regularization procedure, which makes is possible to calculate the divergent local terms in the CFT two-point function. We present the procedure for the example of the scalar field.
The strong subadditivity is the most important inequality which entanglement entropy satisfies. Based on the AdS/CFT conjecture, entanglement entropy in CFT is equal to the area of the minimal surface in AdS space. It is known that a Wilson loop can also be holographically computed from the minimal surface in AdS space. In this paper, we argue that Wilson loops also satisfy a similar inequality, and find several evidences of it.
We expand on Klebanov and Witten's recent proposal for formulating the AdS/CFT correspondence using irregular boundary conditions. The proposal is shown to be correct to any order in perturbation theory.
We solve the Dirichlet boundary value problem for the massless gravitino on $AdS_{d+1}$ space and compute the two-point function of the dual CFT supersymmetry currents using the $AdS$/CFT correspondence principle. We find analogously to the spinor case that the boundary data for the massless $(d+1)$ dimensional bulk gravitino field consists of only a $(d-1)$ dimensional gravitino.
We investigate sub-AdS scale locality in a weakly coupled toy model of the AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$ correspondence. We find that this simple model has the correct density of states at low and high energies to be dual to Einstein gravity coupled to matter in AdS$_3$. Bulk correlation functions also have the correct behavior at leading order in the large $N$ expansion, but non-local effects emerge at order $1/N$. Our analysis leads to the conjecture that any large $N$ CFT$_2$ that is modular invariant and has the right low-energy density of states is dual to a gravitational theory with sub-AdS scale loca…
We will study the AdS/CFT correspondence in an intermediate region between the strong form of this correspondence (string theory on AdS being dual to a boundary CFT), and the weak form of this correspondence (supergravity on AdS being dual to a boundary CFT). We will go beyond the supergravity approximation in the AdS by using the fact that strings have an extended structure. We will also calculate the CFT dual to such string corrections in the bulk, and demonstrate that they are consistent with the strong form of the AdS/CFT correspondence. So, even though the conformal dimensions of both the…
Recently we proposed a universal solvable irrelevant deformation of $AdS_3/CFT_2$ duality, which leads in the ultraviolet to a theory with a Hagedorn entropy [1]. In this note we provide a worldsheet description of this theory as a coset CFT, and compare its spectrum to the field theory predictions of [2,3].
