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Alex S. Miranda

Publications and source records attributed to Alex S. Miranda.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Transport coefficients and quasinormal modes in Einstein-dilaton holographic QCD

In this paper, we investigate the transport coefficients of a strongly coupled plasma in the context of holographic QCD models based on Einstein-dilaton gravity that are compatible with linear confinement at zero temperature. At finite temperature, the holographic model is characterized by an asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) black hole coupled to a scalar field, the dilaton, which is quadratic in the radial direction. The inclusion of the scalar field results in an explicit breaking of the conformal symmetry in the dual field theory. In such systems, the Hawking temperature of the black hole corresponds to the plasma temperature in the dual field theory. We confirm the existence of a minimum temperature $T_{\min}$, above which two distinct classes of black hole solutions emerge: one corresponding to large black holes and the other to small black holes. We calculate some thermodynamic quantities -- such as entropy, specific heat, and speed of sound -- and find results that are consistent with similar holographic models. We calculate the quasinormal modes (QNM) of the tensor and vector sectors using the pseudospectral method. In the hydrodynamic regime, we derive the dispersion relation for the vector sector, from which we extract the shear viscosity and the ratio $η/s=1/4 π$. The bulk viscosity is calculated using the Kubo formula in the scalar sector. Finally, our results for the speed of sound are compared with the Lattice QCD predictions, and our results for the bulk viscosity are compared with those reported by the JETSCAPE collaboration.

hep-th

Third-order relativistic fluid dynamics at finite density in a general hydrodynamic frame

The motion of water is governed by the Navier-Stokes equations, which are complemented by the continuity equation to ensure local mass conservation. In this work, we construct the relativistic generalization of these equations through a gradient expansion for a fluid with conserved charge in a curved $d$-dimensional spacetime. We adopt a general hydrodynamic frame approach and introduce the Irreducible-Structure (IS) algorithm, which is based on derivatives of both the expansion scalar and the shear and vorticity tensors. By this method, we systematically generate all permissible gradients up to a specified order and derive the most comprehensive constitutive relations for a charged fluid, accurate to third-order gradients. These constitutive relations are formulated to apply to ordinary, non-conformal, and conformally invariant charged fluids. Furthermore, we examine the hydrodynamic frame dependence of the transport coefficients for a non-conformal charged fluid up to the third order in the gradient expansion. The frame dependence of the scalar, vector, and tensor parts of the constitutive relations is obtained in terms of the field redefinitions of the fundamental hydrodynamic variables. Managing these frame dependencies is challenging due to their non-linear character. However, in the linear regime, these higher-order transformations become tractable, enabling the identification of a set of frame-invariant coefficients. An advantage of employing these coefficients is the possibility of studying the linear equations of motion in any chosen frame and, hence, we apply this approach to the Landau frame. Subsequently, these linear equations are solved in momentum space, yielding dispersion relations for shear, sound, and diffusive modes for a non-conformal charged fluid, expressed in terms of the frame-invariant transport coefficients.

hep-th

Effective holographic models for QCD: Thermodynamics and viscosity coefficients

A finite temperature extension of the effective holographic models for QCD (EHQCD), proposed in Ref.[1], is investigated in the present work. EHQCD models are characterized by two parameters, the conformal dimension of the relevant operator that deforms the CFT and the associated coupling. We find that black hole solutions appear at temperatures higher than some temperature $T_{min}$ and can be categorized in two classes: large and small black holes. A large black hole is thermally stable and it is therefore interpreted as the gravity dual of a non-conformal plasma. A small black hole, on the other hand, is thermally unstable. We show that thermodynamic quantities such as the entropy density $s$, specific heat $C_V$, and speed of sound $c_s$ are sensitive to the model parameters. We investigate perturbations of the black hole solutions and calculate the viscosity coefficients of the corresponding dual non-conformal plasma. For the shear viscosity, we confirm that the ratio $η/s$ is given by the universal result $1/4π$. For the bulk viscosity, the ratio $ζ/s$ varies with the temperature, displaying a rapid growth close to $T_{min}$, and it is sensitive to the model parameters. We compare our results for the thermodynamic quantities with the lattice $SU(N_C)$ results and find that they are compatible as long as the coupling is fixed appropriately as a function of the conformal dimension. We also compare our results for the viscosity coefficients against the JETSCAPE results that are obtained from the analysis of experimental data on heavy ion collisions.

hep-th

Third-order relativistic hydrodynamics: dispersion relations and transport coefficients of a dual plasma

Hydrodynamics is nowadays understood as an effective field theory that describes the dynamics of the long-wavelength and slow-time fluctuations of an underlying microscopic theory. In this work we extend the relativistic hydrodynamics to third order in the gradient expansion for neutral fluids in a general curved spacetime of $d$ dimensions. We find 58 new transport coefficients, 19 due to third-order scalar corrections and 39 due to tensorial corrections. In the particular case of a conformal fluid, the number of new transport coefficients is reduced to 19, all of them due to third-order tensorial corrections. The dispersion relations of linear fluctuations in the third-order relativistic hydrodynamics is obtained, both in the rest frame of the fluid and in a general moving frame. As an application we obtain some of the transport coefficients of a relativistic conformal fluid in three dimensions by using the AdS/CFT correspondence. These transport coefficients are extracted from the dispersion relations of the linear fluctuations. The gravity dual of the fluctuations in this conformal fluid is described by the gravitational perturbations of four-dimensional anti-de Sitter black branes, which are solutions of the Einstein equations with a negative cosmological constant. To find the hydrodynamic quasinormal modes (QNMs) of the scalar sector we use the SUSY quantum mechanics of the gravitational perturbations of four-dimensional black branes. Such a symmetry allows us to find the wavefunction of the scalar (or sound) sector in the hydrodynamic limit directly from the wavefunction of the vector (or shear) sector, which is usually easier to be found because the perturbation wave equations for the vector sector are much simpler than the ones for the scalar sector.

hep-th

Melting of scalar mesons and black-hole quasinormal modes in a holographic QCD model

A holographic model for QCD is employed to investigate the effects of the gluon condensate on the spectrum and melting of scalar mesons. We find the evolution of the free energy density with the temperature, and the result shows that the temperature of the confinement/deconfinement transition is sensitive to the gluon-condensate parameter. The spectral functions (SPFs) are also obtained and show a series of peaks in the low-temperature regime, indicating the presence of quasiparticle states associated to the mesons, while the number of peaks decreases with the increment of the temperature, characterizing the quasiparticle melting. In the dual gravitational description, the scalar mesons are identified with the black-hole quasinormal modes (QNMs). We obtain the spectrum of QNMs and the dispersion relations corresponding to the scalar-field perturbations of the gravitational background, and find their dependence with the gluon-condensate parameter.

hep-th

New results on the physical interpretation of black-brane gravitational perturbations

The linear perturbation theory applied to the study of black holes is a traditional and powerful tool to investigate some of the basic properties of these objects, such as the stability of the event horizon, the spectra of quasinormal modes, the scattering and the production of waves in a process of gravitational collapse. Since long ago, the physical interpretation of the linear fluctuations in the metric of spherically symmetric black holes has been established. In a multipolar expansion, it is known that polar perturbations of a monopole type ($l=0$) can only increase the black-hole mass, axial perturbations of a dipole type ($l=1$) induce a slow rotation in the system, and perturbations with $l\geq 2$ always lead to the production of gravitational waves. However, in relation to the planar Schwarzschild anti--de Sitter black holes (or black branes, for short), there is still no conclusive study on some aspects of the physical meaning of these perturbations. In particular, there is some controversy concerning the polar sector of fluctuations with zero wave number $(k=0)$. Some authors claim that this kind of perturbations causes only a variation in the black-brane mass parameter, while others obtained also evidence for the existence of gravitational waves associated to such modes. The present study aims to contribute to the resolution of this controversy by revealing the physical meaning of the gravitational perturbations of anti--de Sitter black branes. In this work we use the Chandrasekhar's gauge formalism to evaluate the linear variations in the complex Weyl scalars in terms of the Regge-Wheeler-Zerilli gauge-invariant quantities. Then we use the Szekeres' proposal for the meaning of the Weyl scalars and the Pirani's criterion for the existence of gravitational radiation in order to give a physical interpretation of the black-brane perturbations with arbitrary wave number value.

gr-qc

From quasinormal modes of rotating black strings to hydrodynamics of a moving CFT plasma

A certain identification of points in a planar Schwarzschild-anti de Sitter (AdS) black hole generates a four-dimensional static black string. In turn, a rotating black string can be obtained from a static one by means of an `illegitimate coordinate transformation', a local boost in the compact direction. On the basis of the gauge/gravity duality, these black strings are dual to rotating thermal states of a strongly interacting conformal field theory (CFT) that lives on a cylinder. In this work, we obtain the complete quasinormal mode (QNM) spectrum of the gravitational perturbations of rotating black strings. Analytic solutions for the dispersion relations are found in the hydrodynamic limit, characterized by fluctuations with wavenumber and frequency much smaller than the Hawking temperature of the string (or the temperature in the CFT dual description). We obtain these dispersion relations both by studying the gravitational perturbations of rotating black strings and by investigating the hydrodynamic fluctuations of a moving fluid living on the boundary of the AdS spacetime. Relativistic effects like the Doppler shift of the frequencies, wavelength contraction, and dilation of the thermalization time are shown explicitly in such a regime. We also investigate the behavior of a sound wave propagating in a viscous fluid for several values of the rotation parameter. The numerical solutions for the fundamental QNMs show a crossover (a transition) from a hydrodynamic-like behavior to a linear relativistic scaling for large wavenumbers. Additionally, we find a new family of QNMs which are purely damped in the zero wavenumber limit and that does not follow as a continuation of QNMs of the static black string, but that appears to be closely related to the algebraically special perturbation modes.

gr-qc

An effective holographic approach to QCD

We describe a holographic approach to QCD where conformal symmetry is broken explicitly in the UV by a relevant operator ${\cal O}$. The operator maps to a 5d scalar field, the dilaton, with a massive term. Implementing also the IR constraint found by Gursoy, Kiritsis and Nitti, an approximate linear glueball spectrum is obtained which is consistent with lattice data. Finally, we describe the evolution of the model parameters with the conformal dimension of ${\cal O}$. This suggests a map between the QCD trace anomaly and the trace Ward identity of deformed conformal field theories.

hep-th

Effective holographic models for QCD: glueball spectrum and trace anomaly

We investigate effective holographic models for QCD arising from five dimensional Dilaton-Gravity. The models are characterized by a dilaton with a mass term in the UV, dual to a CFT deformation by a relevant operator, and quadratic in the IR. The UV constraint leads to the explicit breaking of conformal symmetry whereas the IR constraint guarantees linear confinement. We propose semi-analytic interpolations between the UV and the IR and obtain a spectrum for scalar and tensor glueballs consistent with lattice QCD data. We use the glueball spectrum as a physical constraint to find the evolution of the model parameters as the mass term goes to zero. Finally, we reproduce the universal result for the trace anomaly of deformed CFTs and propose a dictionary between this result and the QCD trace anomaly. A nontrivial consequence of this dictionary is the emergence of a $β$ function similar to the two-loop perturbative QCD result.

hep-th

Separable wave equations for gravitoelectromagnetic perturbations of rotating charged black strings

Rotating charged black strings are solutions of four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell equations with a negative cosmological constant and a non-trivial topology. According to the AdS/CFT correspondence, these black strings are dual to rotating thermal states of a strongly interacting field theory with nonzero chemical potential that lives in a cylinder. The dynamics of fluctuations in the field theory can be studied from the perturbation equations for classical fields in a black-string spacetime. With this motivation in mind, we develop here a completely gauge and tetrad invariant perturbation approach to deal with the gravitoelectromagnetic fluctuations of rotating charged black strings in the presence of sources. As usual, for any charged black hole, a perturbation in the background electromagnetic field induces a metric perturbation and vice versa. In spite of this coupling and the non-vanishing angular momentum, we show that linearization of equations of the Newman-Penrose formalism leads to four separated second-order complex equations for suitable combinations of the spin coefficients, the Weyl and the Maxwell scalars. Then, we generalize the Chandrasekhar transformation theory by the inclusion of sources and apply it to reduce the perturbation problem to four decoupled inhomogeneous wave equations --- a pair for each sector of perturbations. The radial part of such wave equations can be put into Schrodinger-like forms after Fourier transforming them with respect to time. We find that the resulting effective potentials form two pairs of supersymmetric partner potentials and, as a consequence, the fundamental variables of one perturbation sector are related to the variables of the other sector. The relevance of such a symmetry in connection to the AdS/CFT correspondence is discussed, and future applications of the pertubation theory developed here are outlined.

gr-qc

Vector meson quasinormal modes in a finite-temperature AdS/QCD model

We study the spectrum of vector mesons in a finite temperature plasma. The plasma is holographically described by a black hole AdS/QCD model. We compute the boundary retarded Green's function using AdS/CFT prescriptions. The corresponding thermal spectral functions show quasiparticle peaks at low temperatures. Then we calculate the quasinormal modes of vector mesons in the soft-wall black hole geometry and analyse their temperature and momentum dependences.

hep-th

Electromagnetic quasinormal modes of rotating black strings and the AdS/CFT correspondence

We investigate the quasinormal spectrum of electromagnetic perturbations of rotating black strings. Among the solutions of Einstein equations in the presence of a negative cosmological constant there are asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) black holes whose horizons have the topology of a cylinder. The stationary version of these AdS black holes represents rotating black strings. The conformal field theory (CFT) dual of a black string lives in a Minkowski space with a compact dimension. On the basis of the AdS/CFT duality, we interpret a CFT plasma moving with respect to the preferred rest frame introduced by the topology as the holographic dual to a rotating black string. We explore the consequences of this correspondence by investigating the electromagnetic perturbations of a black string for different rotation parameter values. As usual the electromagnetic quasinormal modes (QNM) correspond to the poles of retarded Green's functions of $R$-symmetry currents in the boundary field theory. The hydrodynamic regime of the QNM dispersion relations are analytically studied. Finally, we investigate numerically the effect of rotation on all the family of black-string electromagnetic quasinormal modes. We interpret these results from the CFT perspective and notice the emergence of effects like Doppler shift of the frequencies and dilation of the thermalization times.

hep-th

Black-hole quasinormal modes and scalar glueballs in a finite-temperature AdS/QCD model

We use the holographic AdS/QCD soft-wall model to investigate the spectrum of scalar glueballs in a finite temperature plasma. In this model, glueballs are described by a massless scalar field in an AdS_5 black hole with a dilaton soft-wall background. Using AdS/CFT prescriptions, we compute the boundary retarded Green's function. The corresponding thermal spectral function shows quasiparticle peaks at low temperatures. We also compute the quasinormal modes of the scalar field in the soft-wall black hole geometry. The temperature and momentum dependences of these modes are analyzed. The positions and widths of the peaks of the spectral function are related to the frequencies of the quasinormal modes. Our numerical results are found employing the power series method and the computation of Breit-Wigner resonances.

hep-th

Glueballs at finite temperature from AdS/QCD

Inspired in the AdS/CFT correspondence, a variety of holographic phenomenological models have been proposed in the last years to describe non-perturbative aspects of strong interactions. These models are denominated as AdS/QCD. In this work we review the use of the AdS/QCD soft-wall model to investigate the spectrum of scalar glueballs at finite temperature. The scalar glueball states are identified as the poles of the retarded correlation function of the glueball operator. In the gauge/gravity duality, these poles are determined by the quasinormal spectrum of a massless scalar field propagating in the bulk geometry that consists on an ${AdS}_{5}$ black hole with a background dilaton field. We discuss some results for masses and decay widths of scalar glueballs in the plasma phase and analyse how these quantities evolve with temperature and momentum.

hep-th

Gravitational quasinormal modes of AdS black branes in d spacetime dimensions

The AdS/CFT duality has established a mapping between quantities in the bulk AdS black-hole physics and observables in a boundary finite-temperature field theory. Such a relationship appears to be valid for an arbitrary number of spacetime dimensions, extrapolating the original formulations of Maldacena's correspondence. In the same sense properties like the hydrodynamic behavior of AdS black-hole fluctuations have been proved to be universal. We investigate in this work the complete quasinormal spectra of gravitational perturbations of $d$-dimensional plane-symmetric AdS black holes (black branes). Holographically the frequencies of the quasinormal modes correspond to the poles of two-point correlation functions of the field-theory stress-energy tensor. The important issue of the correct boundary condition to be imposed on the gauge-invariant perturbation fields at the AdS boundary is studied and elucidated in a fully $d$-dimensional context. We obtain the dispersion relations of the first few modes in the low-, intermediate- and high-wavenumber regimes. The sound-wave (shear-mode) behavior of scalar (vector)-type low-frequency quasinormal mode is analytically and numerically confirmed. These results are found employing both a power series method and a direct numerical integration scheme.

hep-th

Quasinormal modes of black holes in anti-de Sitter space: a numerical study of the eikonal limit

Using series solutions and time-domain evolutions, we probe the eikonal limit of the gravitational and scalar-field quasinormal modes of large black holes and black branes in anti-de Sitter backgrounds. These results are particularly relevant for the AdS/CFT correspondence, since the eikonal regime is characterized by the existence of long-lived modes which (presumably) dominate the decay timescale of the perturbations. We confirm all the main qualitative features of these slowly-damped modes as predicted by Festuccia and Liu (arXiv:0811.1033) for the scalar-field (tensor-type gravitational) fluctuations. However, quantitatively we find dimensional-dependent correction factors. We also investigate the dependence of the QNM frequencies on the horizon radius of the black hole (brane) and the angular momentum (wavenumber) of vector- and scalar-type gravitational perturbations.

hep-th

Geodesic stability, Lyapunov exponents and quasinormal modes

Geodesic motion determines important features of spacetimes. Null unstable geodesics are closely related to the appearance of compact objects to external observers and have been associated with the characteristic modes of black holes. By computing the Lyapunov exponent, which is the inverse of the instability timescale associated with this geodesic motion, we show that, in the eikonal limit, quasinormal modes of black holes in any dimensions are determined by the parameters of the circular null geodesics. This result is independent of the field equations and only assumes a stationary, spherically symmetric and asymptotically flat line element, but it does not seem to be easily extendable to anti-de Sitter spacetimes. We further show that (i) in spacetime dimensions greater than four, equatorial circular timelike geodesics in a Myers-Perry black hole background are unstable, and (ii) the instability timescale of equatorial null geodesics in Myers-Perry spacetimes has a local minimum for spacetimes of dimension d > 5.

hep-th

Quasinormal modes of plane-symmetric black holes according to the AdS/CFT correspondence

The electromagnetic and gravitational quasinormal spectra of $(3+1)$-dimensional plane-symmetric anti-de Sitter black holes are analyzed in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence. According to such a correspondence, the electromagnetic and gravitational quasinormal frequencies of these black holes are associated respectively to the poles of retarded correlation functions of $R$-symmetry currents and stress-energy tensor in the holographically dual conformal field theory: the $(2+1)$-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=8$ super-Yang-Mills theory. The connection between AdS black holes and the corresponding field theory is used to unambiguously fix the boundary conditions that enter the proper definition of quasinormal modes. Such a procedure also helps one to decide, among the various different possibilities, what are the appropriate gauge-invariant quantities one should use in order to correctly describe the electromagnetic and gravitational blackhole perturbations. These choices imply in different dispersion relations for the quasinormal modes when compared to some of the results in the literature. In particular, the long-distance, low-frequency limit of dispersion relations presents the characteristic hydrodynamic behavior of a conformal field theory with the presence of diffusion, shear, and sound wave modes. There is also a family of purely damped electromagnetic modes which tend to the bosonic Matsubara frequencies in the long-wavelength regime.

hep-th