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Arnab Kundu

Publications and source records attributed to Arnab Kundu.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Emergent Horizons and Causal Structures in Holography

The open string metric arises kinematically in studying fluctuations of open string degrees of freedom on a D-brane. An observer, living on a probe D-brane, can send signals through the spacetime by using such fluctuations on the probe, that propagate in accordance with a metric which is conformal to the open string metric. Event horizons can emerge in the open string metric when one considers a D-brane with an electric field on its worldvolume. Here, we emphasize the role of and investigate, in details, the causal structure of the resulting open string event horizon and demonstrate, among other things, its close similarities to an usual black hole event horizon in asymptotically AdS-spaces. To that end, we analyze relevant geodesics, Penrose diagrams and various causal holographic observables for a given open string metric. For analytical control, most of our calculations are performed in an asymptotically AdS$_3$-background, however, we argue that the physics is qualitatively the same in higher dimensions. We also discuss how this open string metric arises from an underlying D-brane configuration in string theory.

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Flavour Fields in Steady State: Stress Tensor and Free Energy

The dynamics of a probe brane in a given gravitational background is governed by the Dirac-Born-Infeld action. The corresponding open string metric arises naturally in studying the fluctuations on the probe. In Gauge-String duality, it is known that in the presence of a constant electric field on the worldvolume of the probe, the open string metric acquires an event horizon and therefore the fluctuation modes on the probe experience an effective temperature. In this article, we bring together various properties of such a system to a formal definition and a subsequent narration of the effective thermodynamics and the stress tensor of the corresponding flavour fields, also including a non-vanishing chemical potential. In doing so, we point out a potentially infinitely-degenerate scheme-dependence of regularizing the free energy, which nevertheless yields a universal contribution in certain cases. This universal piece appears as the coefficient of a log-divergence in free energy when a space-filling probe brane is embedded in AdS$_{d+1}$-background, for $d=2, 4$, and is related to conformal anomaly. For the special case of $d=2$, the universal factor has a striking resemblance to the well-known heat current formula in $(1+1)$-dimensional conformal field theory in steady-state, which endows a plausible physical interpretation to it. Interestingly, we observe a vanishing conformal anomaly in $d=6$.

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Three-dimensional super Yang-Mills with compressible quark matter

We construct the gravity dual of three-dimensional, $SU(N_{\textrm{c}})$ super Yang-Mills theory with $N_{\textrm{f}}$ flavors of dynamical quarks in the presence of a non-zero quark density $N_{\textrm{q}}$. The supergravity solutions include the backreaction of $N_{\textrm{c}}$ color D2-branes and $N_{\textrm{f}}$ flavor D6-branes with $N_{\textrm{q}}$ units of electric flux on their worldvolume. For massless quarks, the solutions depend non-trivially only on the dimensionless combination $ρ=N_{\textrm{c}}^2 N_{\textrm{q}} / λ^2 N_{\textrm{f}}^4$, with $λ=g_{\textrm{YM}}^2 N_{\textrm{c}}$ the 't Hooft coupling, and describe renormalization group flows between the super Yang-Mills theory in the ultraviolet and a non-relativistic theory in the infrared. The latter is dual to a hyperscaling-violating, Lifshitz-like geometry with dynamical and hyperscaling-violating exponents $z=5$ and $θ=1$, respectively. If $ρ\ll 1$ then at intermediate energies there is also an approximate AdS$_4$ region, dual to a conformal Chern-Simons-Matter theory, in which the flow exhibits quasi-conformal dynamics. At zero temperature we compute the chemical potential and the equation of state and extract the speed of sound. At low temperature we compute the entropy density and extract the number of low-energy degrees of freedom. For quarks of non-zero mass $M_{\textrm{q}}$ the physics depends non-trivially on $ρ$ and $M_{\textrm{q}} N_{\textrm{c}}/λN_{\textrm{f}}$.

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Effective Temperature in Steady-state Dynamics from Holography

We argue that, within the realm of gauge-gravity duality, for a large class of systems in a steady-state there exists an effective thermodynamic description. This description comes equipped with an effective temperature and a free energy, but no well-defined notion of entropy. Such systems are described by probe degrees of freedom propagating in a much larger background, e.g. $N_f$ number of ${\cal N} =2$ hypermultiplets in ${\cal N}=4$ $SU(N_c)$ super Yang-Mills theory, in the limit $N_f \ll N_c$. The steady-state is induced by exciting an external electric field that couples to the hypermultiplets and drives a constant current. With various stringy examples, we demonstrate that an open string equivalence principle determines a unique effective temperature for all fluctuations in the probe-sector. We further discuss various properties of the corresponding open string metric that determines the effective geometry which the probe degrees of freedom are coupled to. We also comment on the non-Abelian generalization, where the effective temperature depends on the corresponding sector of the fluctuation modes.

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Weak Field Collapse in AdS: Introducing a Charge Density

We study the effect of a non-vanishing chemical potential on the thermalization time of a strongly coupled large $N_c$ gauge theory in $(2+1)$-dimensions, using a specific bottom-up gravity model in asymptotically AdS space. We first construct a perturbative solution to the gravity-equations, which dynamically interpolates between two AdS black hole backgrounds with different temperatures and chemical potentials, in a perturbative expansion of a bulk neutral scalar field. In the dual field theory, this corresponds to a quench dynamics by a marginal operator, where the corresponding coupling serves as the small parameter in which the perturbation is carried out. The evolution of non-local observables, such as the entanglement entropy, suggests that thermalization time decreases with increasing chemical potential. We also comment on the validity of our perturbative analysis.

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Steady-state Physics, Effective Temperature Dynamics in Holography

Using the gauge-gravity duality, we argue that for a certain class of out-of-equilibrium steady-state systems in contact with a thermal background at a given temperature, the macroscopic physics can be captured by an effective thermodynamic description. The steady-state is obtained by applying a constant electric field that results in a stationary current flow. Within holography, we consider generic probe systems where an open string equivalence principle and an open string metric govern the effective thermodynamics. This description comes equipped with an effective temperature, which is larger than the background temperature, and a corresponding effective entropy. For conformal or scale-invariant theories, certain scaling behaviours follow immediately. In general, in the large electric field limit, this effective temperature is also observed to obey generic relations with various physical parameters in the system.

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(Super)Yang-Mills at Finite Heavy-Quark Density

We study the gravitational duals of $d$-dimensional Yang-Mills theories with $d\leq 6$ in the presence of an ${\cal O} (N^2)$ density of heavy quarks, with $N$ the number of colors. For concreteness we focus on maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills, but our results apply to a larger class of theories with or without supersymmetry. The gravitational solutions describe renormalization group flows towards infrared scaling geometries characterized by fixed dynamical and hyperscaling-violating exponents. The special case $d=5$ yields an $AdS_3 \times \mathbb{R}^4 \times S^4$ geometry upon uplifting to M-theory. We discuss the multitude of physical scales that separate different dynamical regimes along the flows, as well as the validity of the supergravity description. We also present exact black brane solutions that encode the low-temperature thermodynamics.

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Strong Subadditivity, Null Energy Condition and Charged Black Holes

Using the Hubeny-Rangamani-Takayanagi (HRT) conjectured formula for entanglement entropy in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence with time-dependent backgrounds, we investigate the relation between the bulk null energy condition (NEC) of the stress-energy tensor with the strong sub-additivity (SSA) property of entanglement entropy in the boundary theory. In a background that interpolates between an AdS to an AdS-Reissner-Nordstrom-type geometry, we find that generically there always exists a critical surface beyond which the violation of NEC would naively occur. However, the extremal area surfaces that determine the entanglement entropy for the boundary theory, can penetrate into this forbidden region only for certain choices for the mass and the charge functions in the background. This penetration is then perceived as the violation of SSA in the boundary theory. We also find that this happens only when the critical surface lies above the apparent horizon, but not otherwise. We conjecture that SSA, which is thus non-trivially related to NEC, also characterizes the entire time-evolution process along which the dual field theory may thermalize.

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Holographic Entanglement in a Noncommutative Gauge Theory

In this article we investigate aspects of entanglement entropy and mutual information in a large-N strongly coupled noncommutative gauge theory, both at zero and at finite temperature. Using the gauge-gravity duality and the Ryu-Takayanagi (RT) prescription, we adopt a scheme for defining spatial regions on such noncommutative geometries and subsequently compute the corresponding entanglement entropy. We observe that for regions which do not lie entirely in the noncommutative plane, the RT-prescription yields sensible results. In order to make sense of the divergence structure of the corresponding entanglement entropy, it is essential to introduce an additional cut-off in the theory. For regions which lie entirely in the noncommutative plane, the corresponding minimal area surfaces can only be defined at this cut-off and they have distinctly peculiar properties.

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Jet Quenching and Holographic Thermalization with a Chemical Potential

We investigate jet quenching of virtual gluons and thermalization of a strongly-coupled plasma with a non-zero chemical potential via the gauge/gravity duality. By tracking a charged shell falling in an asymptotic AdS$_{d+1}$ background for $d=3$ and $d=4$, which is characterized by the AdS-Reissner-Nordström-Vaidya (AdS-RN-Vaidya) geometry, we extract a thermalization time of the medium with a non-zero chemical potential. In addition, we study the falling string as the holographic dual of a virtual gluon in the AdS-RN-Vaidya spacetime. The stopping distance of the massless particle representing the tip of the falling string in such a spacetime could reveal the jet quenching of an energetic light probe traversing the medium in the presence of a chemical potential. We find that the stopping distance decreases when the chemical potential is increased in both AdS-RN and AdS-RN-Vaidya spacetimes, which correspond to the thermalized and thermalizing media respectively. Moreover, we find that the soft gluon with an energy comparable to the thermalization temperature and chemical potential in the medium travels further in the non-equilibrium plasma. The thermalization time obtained here by tracking a falling charged shell does not exhibit, generically, the same qualitative features as the one obtained studying non-local observables. This indicates that --holographically-- the definition of thermalization time is observer dependent and there is no unambiguos definition.

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Dynamics of Non-supersymmetric Flavours

We investigate the effect of the back-reaction by non-supersymmetric probes in the Kuperstein-Sonnenschein model. In the limit where the back-reaction is small, we discuss physical properties of the back-reacted geometry. We further introduce additional probe flavours in this back-reacted geometry and study in detail the phase structure of this sector when a constant electromagnetic field or a chemical potential are present. We find that the Landau pole, which serves as the UV cut-off of the background geometry, also serves as an important scale in the corresponding thermodynamics of the additional flavour sector. We note that since these additional probe flavours are indistinguishable from the back-reacting flavours, the results we obtain point to a much richer phase structure of the system.

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Holographic Mutual Information at Finite Temperature

Using the Ryu-Takayanagi conjectured formula for entanglement entropy in the context of gauge-gravity duality, we investigate properties of mutual information between two disjoint rectangular sub-systems in finite temperature relativistic conformal field theories in d-spacetime dimensions and non-relativistic scale-invariant theories in some generic examples. In all these cases mutual information undergoes a transition beyond which it is identically zero. We study this transition in detail and find universal qualitative features for the above class of theories which has holographic dual descriptions. We also obtain analytical results for mutual information in the specific regime of the parameter space. This demonstrates that mutual information contains the quantum entanglement part of the entanglement entropy, which is otherwise dominated by the thermal entropy at large temperatures.

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Back-reaction of Non-supersymmetric Probes: Phase Transition and Stability

We consider back-reaction by non-supersymmetric D7/anti-D7 probe branes in the Kuperstein-Sonnenschein model at finite temperature. Using the smearing technique, we obtain an analytical solution for the back-reacted background to leading order in N_f/N_c. This back-reaction explicitly breaks the conformal invariance and introduces a dimension 6 operator in the dual field theory which is an irrelevant deformation of the original conformal field theory. We further probe this back-reacted background by introducing an additional set of probe brane/anti-brane. This additional probe sector undergoes a chiral phase transition at finite temperature, which is absent when the back-reaction vanishes. We investigate the corresponding phase diagram and the thermodynamics associated with this phase transition. We also argue that additional probes do not suffer from any instability caused by the back-reaction, which suggests that this system is stable beyond the probe limit.

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Jet Quenching and Holographic Thermalization

We employ the AdS/CFT correspondence to investigate the thermalization of the strongly-coupled plasma and the jet quenching of a hard probe traversing such a thermalizing medium.

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Holographic Thermalization with Chemical Potential

We study the thermalization of a strongly coupled quantum field theory in the presence of a chemical potential. More precisely, using the holographic prescription, we calculate non- local operators such as two point function, Wilson loop and entanglement entropy in a time- dependent background that interpolates between AdSd+1 and AdSd+1 -Reissner-Nordström for d = 3, 4. We find that it is the entanglement entropy that thermalizes the latest and thus sets a time-scale for equilibration in the field theory. We study the dependence of the thermalization time on the probe length and the chemical potential. We find an interesting non-monotonic behavior. For a fixed small value of T l and small values of μ/T the thermalization time decreases as we increase μ/T, thus the plasma thermalizes faster. For large values of μ/T the dependence changes and the thermalization time increases with increasing μ/T . On the other hand, if we increase the value of T l this non-monotonic behavior becomes less pronounced and eventually disappears indicating two different regimes for the physics of thermalization: non-monotonic dependence of the thermalization time on the chemical potential for T l << 1 and monotonic for T l >> 1.

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Chiral Symmetry Breaking and External Fields in the Kuperstein-Sonnenschein Model

A novel holographic model of chiral symmetry breaking has been proposed by Kuperstein and Sonnenschein by embedding non-supersymmetric probe D7 and anti-D7 branes in the Klebanov-Witten background. We study the dynamics of the probe flavours in this model in the presence of finite temperature and a constant electromagnetic field. In keeping with the weakly coupled field theory intuition, we find the magnetic field promotes spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry whereas the electric field restores it. The former effect is universally known as the "magnetic catalysis" in chiral symmetry breaking. In the presence of an electric field such a condensation is inhibited and a current flows. Thus we are faced with a steady-state situation rather than a system in equilibrium. We conjecture a definition of thermodynamic free energy for this steady-state phase and using this proposal we study the detailed phase structure when both electric and magnetic fields are present in two representative configurations: mutually perpendicular and parallel.

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Minimal Holographic Superconductors from Maximal Supergravity

We study a truncation of four-dimensional maximal gauged supergravity that provides a realization of the minimal model of a holographic superconductor. We find various flow solutions in this truncation at zero and finite temperature with a non-trivial profile for the charged scalar. Below a critical temperature we find holographic superconductor solutions that represent the thermodynamically preferred phase. Depending on the choice of boundary conditions, the superconducting phase transition is either first or second order. For vanishing temperature we find a flow with a condensing charged scalar that interpolates between two perturbatively stable AdS_4 vacua and is the zero-temperature ground state of the holographic superconductor.

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Global Currents, Phase Transitions, and Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Large N_c Gauge Theory

We study, using a gravity dual, the finite temperature dynamics of $SU(N_c)$ gauge theory for large $N_c$, with fundamental quark flavours in a quenched approximation, in the presence of a fixed R--charge under a global R--current. We observe several notable phenomena. There is a first order phase transition where the quark condensate jumps discontinuously at finite quark mass, generalizing similar transitions seen at zero charge. Our tool in these studies is holography, the string dual of the gauge theory being the geometry of $N_c$ spinning D3--branes at finite temperature, probed by a D7--brane.

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