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arXiv · 2104.06435

Shear Viscosity at Infinite Coupling: A Field Theory Calculation

Paul Romatschke
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Abstract

I derive an exact integral expression for the ratio of shear viscosity over entropy density $\fracη{s}$ for the massless (critical) O(N) model at large N with quartic interactions. The calculation is set up and performed entirely from the field theory side using a non-perturbative resummation scheme that captures all contributions to leading order in large N. In 2+1d, $\fracη{s}$ is evaluated numerically at all values of the coupling. For infinite coupling, I find $\fracη{s}\simeq 0.42(1)\times N$. I show that this strong coupling result for the viscosity is universal for a large class of interacting bosonic O(N) models.

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Paul Romatschke. 2021-12-21. Shear Viscosity at Infinite Coupling: A Field Theory Calculation. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.127.111603

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