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arXiv · 1903.02859

Viscoelastic Dynamics in Holography

Abstract

We study the mechanical response under time-dependent sources of a simple class of holographic models that exhibit viscoelastic features. The ratio of viscosity over elastic modulus defines an intrinsic relaxation time scale -- the so-called Maxwell relaxation time $\tau_M$, which has been identified traditionally with the relaxation time scale. We compute explicitly the relaxation time in our examples and that it differs from $\tau_M$. At high temperatures $\tau_M$ over-estimates the actual relaxation time, although not by much and moreover it still captures reasonably well the temperature behaviour. At sufficiently low temperatures the situation is reversed: $\tau_M$ underestimates the actual relaxation time, in some cases quite drastically. Moreover, when $\tau_M$ under-estimates the real-time response exhibits an overshoot phenomenon before relaxation. We comment on the $T = 0$ limit, where the relaxation is power-law because our models exhibit criticality.

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Tomas Andrade, Matteo Baggioli, Oriol Pujolas. 2019-03-07. Viscoelastic Dynamics in Holography. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.100.106014

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