arXiv subjects

Alex Buchel

Publications and source records attributed to Alex Buchel.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2008

Resolving disagreement for eta/s in a CFT plasma at finite coupling

The ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density in a strongly coupled CFT plasma can be computed using the AdS/CFT correspondence either from equilibrium correlation functions or from the Janik-Peschanski dual of the boost invariant plasma expansion. We point out that the previously found disagreement for eta/s at finite t' Hooft coupling is resolved once the incoming-wave boundary condition for metric fluctuations at the horizon of the dual geometry is properly imposed.

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arXiv2008

"Black Universe" epoch in String Cosmology

String theory compactification involves manifolds with multiple warp factors. For cosmological applications, one often introduces a short, high-energy inflationary throat, and a long,low-energy Standard Model throat. It is assumed that at the end of inflation,the excited Kaluza-Klein modes from the Inflationary throat tunnel to the SM throat and reheat Standard Model degrees of freedom, which are attached to probe brane(s). However, the huge hierarchy of energy scales can result in a highly dynamic transition of the throat geometry. We point out that in such a cosmological scenario the Standard Model throat (together with SM brane) will be cloaked by a Schwarzschild horizon, produced by the Kaluza-Klein modes tunneling from the short throat. The Black Brane formation is dual to the first order chiral phase transition of the cascading gauge theory. We calculate the critical energy density corresponding the formation of the the BH horizon in the long throat. We discuss the duality between "Black Universe" cosmology and an expanding universe driven by the hot gauge theory radiation. We address the new problem of the hierarchical multiple-throat scenarios: SM brane disappearance after the decay of the BH horizon.

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arXiv2008

On SUGRA description of boost-invariant conformal plasma at strong coupling

We study string theory duals of the expanding boost invariant conformal gauge theory plasmas at strong coupling. The dual supergravity background is constructed as an asymptotic late-time expansion, corresponding to equilibration of the gauge theory plasma. The absence of curvature singularities in the first few orders of the late-time expansion of the dual gravitational background unambiguously determines the equilibrium equation of the state, and the shear viscosity of the gauge theory plasma. While the absence of the leading pole singularities in the gravitational curvature invariants at the third order in late-time expansion determines the relaxation time of the plasma, the subleading logarithmic singularity can not be canceled within a supergravity approximation. We comment on the possible interpretations of this singularity.

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arXiv2008

Shear viscosity of boost invariant plasma at finite coupling

We discuss string theory alpha' corrections in the dual description of the expanding boost invariant N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma at strong coupling. We compute finite 't Hooft coupling corrections to the shear viscosity and find that it disagrees with the equilibrium correlation function computations. We comment on the possible source of the discrepancy.

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arXiv2007

On the supergravity description of boost invariant conformal plasma at strong coupling

We study string theory duals of the expanding boost invariant conformal gauge theory plasmas at strong coupling. The dual supergravity background is constructed as an asymptotic late-time expansion, corresponding to equilibration of the gauge theory plasma. The absence of curvature singularities in the first few orders of the late-time expansion of the dual gravitational background unambiguously determines the equilibrium equation of the state, and the shear viscosity of the gauge theory plasma. While the absence of the leading pole singularities in the gravitational curvature invariants at the third order in late-time expansion determines the relaxation time of the plasma, the subleading logarithmic singularity can not be canceled within a supergravity approximation. Thus, a supergravity approximation to a dual description of the strongly coupled boost invariant expanding plasma is inconsistent. Nevertheless we find that the relaxation time determined from cancellation of pole singularities is quite robust.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Bulk viscosity of gauge theory plasma at strong coupling

We propose a lower bound on bulk viscosity of strongly coupled gauge theory plasmas. Using explicit example of the N=2^* gauge theory plasma we show that the bulk viscosity remains finite at a critical point with a divergent specific heat. We present an estimate for the bulk viscosity of QGP plasma at RHIC.

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arXiv2007

The black hole in the throat - thermodynamics of strongly coupled cascading gauge theories

We numerically construct black hole solutions corresponding to the deconfined, chirally symmetric phase of strongly coupled cascading gauge theories at various temperatures. We compute the free energy as a function of the temperature, and we show that it becomes positive below some critical temperature, indicating the possibility of a first order phase transition at which the theory deconfines and restores the chiral symmetry.

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arXiv2007

Coupling constant dependence of the shear viscosity in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory

Gauge theory - gravity duality predicts that the shear viscosity of N=4 supersymmetric SU(N_c) Yang-Mills plasma at temperature T in the limit of large N_c and large 't Hooft coupling g^2_{YM} N_c is independent of the coupling and equals to πN_c^2 T^3/8. In this paper, we compute the leading correction to the shear viscosity in inverse powers of 't Hooft coupling using the α'-corrected low-energy effective action of type IIB string theory. We also find the correction to the ratio of shear viscosity to the volume entropy density (equal to 1/4πin the limit of infinite coupling). The correction to 1/4πscales as (g^2_{YM} N_c)^{-3/2} with a positive coefficient.

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arXiv2007

Dynamical stabilization of runaway potentials and landscape of vacua at finite density

We study a SU(2) gauge theory with a classical complex modulus. Introducing a chemical potential for a conserved modulus hypercharge causes it to become unstable and start condensing. We show that the modulus condensation in turn generates homogeneous but anisotropic non-abelian field strength condensates. The existence of a stable vacuum at the end point of the condensation process depends on a modulus representation under the gauge group. For a modulus in the fundamental representation, the global vacuum of the theory is a state both with the rotational symmetry and the electromagnetic U(1) being spontaneously broken. In other words, the system describes an anisotropic superconducting medium. We further explore the landscape of vacua of this theory and identify metastable vacua with an abnormal number of Nambu-Goldstone bosons. The SO(2) symmetry of these vacua corresponds to locking gauge, flavor, and spin degrees of freedom. There are also metastable SO(3) rotationally invariant vacua. For a modulus in the adjoint representation, we show that the theory does not have stable vacua with homogeneous anisotropic non-abelian field strength condensates, although there are metastable vacua. The reason of that is connected with a larger number of the physical components of the modulus in the case of the adjoint representation as compared to the fundamental one.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Dynamical stabilization of runaway potentials at finite density

We study four dimensional non-abelian gauge theories with classical moduli. Introducing a chemical potential for a flavor charge causes moduli to become unstable and start condensing. We show that the moduli condensation in the presence of a chemical potential generates nonabelian field strength condensates. These condensates are homogeneous but non-isotropic. The end point of the condensation process is a stable homogeneous, but non-isotropic, vacuum in which both gauge and flavor symmetries and the rotational invariance are spontaneously broken. Possible applications of this phenomenon for the gauge theory/string theory correspondence and in cosmology are briefly discussed.

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arXiv2007

Gauged supergravity from type IIB string theory on Y^{p,q} manifolds

We first construct a consistent Kaluza-Klein reduction ansatz for type IIB theory compactified on Sasaki-Einstein manifolds Y^{p,q} with Freund-Rubin 5-form flux giving rise to minimal N=2 gauged supergravity in five dimensions. We then investigate the R-charged black hole solution in this gauged supergravity, and in particular study its thermodynamics. Based on the gauge theory/string theory correspondence, this non-extremal geometry is dual to finite temperature strongly coupled four-dimensional conformal gauge theory plasma with a U(1)_R-symmetry charge chemical potential. We study transport properties of the gauge theory plasma and show that the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density in this plasma is universal. We further conjecture that the universality of shear viscosity of strongly coupled gauge theory plasma extends to nonzero R-charge chemical potential.

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arXiv2007

Thermodynamics of the N=2^* strongly coupled plasma

Gauge/string duality is a potentially important framework for addressing the properties of the strongly coupled quark gluon plasma produced at RHIC. However, constructing an actual string theory dual to QCD has so far proven elusive. In this paper, we take a partial step towards exploring the QCD plasma by investigating the thermodynamics of a non-conformal system, namely the N=2^* theory, which is obtained as a mass deformation of the conformal N=4 gauge theory. We find that at temperatures of order the mass scale, the thermodynamics of the mass deformed plasma is surprisingly close to that of the conformal gauge theory plasma. This suggests that many properties of the quark gluon plasma at RHIC may in fact be well described by even relatively simple models such as that of the conformal N=4 plasma.

hep-th↗

arXiv2006

The shear viscosity of gauge theory plasma with chemical potentials

We consider strongly coupled gauge theory plasma with conserved global charges that allow for a dual gravitational description. We study the shear viscosity of the gauge theory plasma in the presence of chemical potentials for these charges. Using gauge theory/string theory correspondence we prove that at large 't Hooft coupling the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density is universal.

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arXiv2006

Short distance properties of cascading gauge theories

We study the short distance (large momentum) properties of correlation functions of cascading gauge theories by performing a tree-level computation in their dual gravitational background. We prove that these theories are holographically renormalizable; the correlators have only analytic ultraviolet divergences, which may be removed by appropriate local counterterms. We find that n-point correlation functions of properly normalized operators have the expected scaling in the semi-classical gravity (large N) limit: they scale as N_{eff}^{2-n} with N_{eff} proportional to ln(k/Lambda) where k is a typical momentum. Our analysis thus confirms the interpretation of the cascading gauge theories as renormalizable four-dimensional quantum field theories with an effective number of degrees of freedom which logarithmically increases with the energy.

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arXiv2006

Inflation on the resolved warped deformed conifold

Braneworld inflation on the resolved warped deformed conifold is represented by the dynamics of a D3-brane probe with the world volume of a brane spanning the large dimensions of the observable Universe. This model was recently proposed as a string theory candidate for slow-roll inflationary cosmology in hep-th/0511254. During inflation, the scalar curvature of the Universe is determined by the Hubble scale. We argue that taking into account the curvature of the inflationary Universe renders dynamics of the D3-brane fast-roll deep inside the warped throat.

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arXiv2006

On jet quenching parameters in strongly coupled non-conformal gauge theories

Recently Liu, Rajagopal and Wiedemann (LRW) [hep-ph/0605178] proposed a first principle, nonperturbative quantum field theoretic definition of ``jet quenching parameter'' \hat{q} used in models of medium-induced radiative parton energy loss in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC. Relating \hat{q} to a short-distance behavior of a certain light-like Wilson loop, they used gauge theory-string theory correspondence to evaluate \hat{q} for the strongly coupled N=4 SU(N_c) gauge theory plasma. We generalize analysis of LRW to strongly coupled non-conformal gauge theory plasma. We find that a jet quenching parameter is gauge theory specific (not universal). Furthermore, it appears it's value increases as the number of effective adjoint degrees of freedom of a gauge theory plasma increases.

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arXiv2006

Higher derivative corrections to near-extremal black holes in type IIB supergravity

We discuss string theory alpha' corrections to charged near-extremal black 3-branes/black holes in type IIB supergravity. We find that supersymmetric global AdS_5 x S^5 geometry is not corrected to leading order in alpha', while charged or non-extremal black 3-branes/black hole geometries receive alpha' corrections. Following gauge theory-string theory correspondence the thermodynamics of these geometries is mapped to the thermodynamics of large-n_c N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at finite (large) 't Hooft coupling with the U(1)_R-charge chemical potential. We use holographic renormalization to compute the Gibbs free energy and the ADM mass of the near-extremal solutions. The remaining thermodynamic potentials are evaluated enforcing the first law of thermodynamics. We present analytic expressions for the alpha' corrected thermodynamics of black holes in AdS_5 x S^5 and the thermodynamics of charged black 3-branes with identical chemical potentials for [U(1)_R]^3 charges and large (compare to chemical potential) temperature. We compute alpha' corrections to Hawking-Page phase transition. We find that for nonzero chemical potential thermodynamics of near-extremal black 3-brane solution receives ln T correction to leading order in alpha'.

hep-th↗

arXiv2006

Hydrodynamics of Sakai-Sugimoto model in the quenched approximation

We study transport properties of the finite temperature Sakai-Sugimoto model. The model represents a holographic dual to 4+1 dimensional supersymmetric SU(N_c) gauge theory compactified on a circle with anti-periodic boundary conditions for fermions, coupled to N_f left-handed quarks and N_f right-handed quarks localized at different points on the compact circle. We analytically compute the speed of sound and the sound wave attenuation in the quenched approximation. Since confinement/deconfinement (and the chiral symmetry restoration) phase transitions are first order in this model, we do not see any signature of these phase transitions in the transport properties.

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