arXiv subjects

Francesco Aprile

Publications and source records attributed to Francesco Aprile.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Superconductors for superstrings on AdS_5 x T^{1,1}

We construct a one-parameter family of five-dimensional N=2 supergravity Lagrangians with an SU(2,1) / U(2) hypermultiplet. For certain values of the parameter, these are argued to describe the dynamics of scalar modes of superstrings on AdS_5 x T^{1,1}, and therefore to be dual to specific chiral primary operators of Klebanov-Witten superconformal field theory. We demonstrate that, below a critical temperature, the thermodynamics is dominated by charged black holes with hair for the scalars that are dual to the operator of lowest conformal dimension 3/2. The system thus enters into a superconducting phase where condenses.

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arXiv2011

Holographic Superconductors from Gauged Supergravity

We consider minimal setups arising from different truncations of N=8 five-dimensional SO(6) gauged supergravity to study phase transitions involving spontaneous breaking of any of the U(1) symmetries in U(1)xU(1)xU(1)in SO(6). These truncations only keep the three relevant vector fields, four complex scalar fields carrying U(1) charges, plus two neutral scalar fields required by consistency. By considering thermal ensembles with different fixed U(1) charge densities and solving the complete equations including the full back-reaction, in some cases we find instabilities towards the formation of hairy black holes, which lead to second order transitions, resulting from a thermodynamical competition between different sectors. We argue that these should be the dominant thermodynamical instabilities in the full ten-dimensional type IIB theory. In other cases we find unstable branches of hairy black holes that extend to temperatures above a critical temperature (`retrograde condensation'). The results can be used as a first step to understand new aspects of the phase diagram of large N, N=4 SU(N) super Yang-Mills theory with fixed charge densities.

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arXiv2010

p-wave Holographic Superconductors and five-dimensional gauged Supergravity

We explore five-dimensional ${\cal N}=4$ $SU(2)\times U(1)$ and ${\cal N}=8$ SO(6) gauged supergravities as frameworks for condensed matter applications. These theories contain charged (dilatonic) black holes and 2-forms which have non-trivial quantum numbers with respect to U(1) subgroups of SO(6). A question of interest is whether they also contain black holes with two-form hair with the required asymptotic to give rise to holographic superconductivity. We first consider the ${\cal N}=4$ case, which contains a complex two-form potential $A_{μν}$ which has U(1) charge $\pm 1$. We find that a slight generalization, where the two-form potential has an arbitrary charge $q$, leads to a five-dimensional model that exhibits second-order superconducting transitions of p-wave type where the role of order parameter is played by $A_{μν}$, provided $q \gtrsim 5.6$. We identify the operator that condenses in the dual CFT, which is closely related to ${\cal N}=4$ Super Yang-Mills theory with chemical potentials. Similar phase transitions between R-charged black holes and black holes with 2-form hair are found in a generalized version of the ${\cal N}=8$ gauged supergravity Lagrangian where the two-forms have charge $q\gtrsim 1.8$.

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arXiv2010

Phenomenological Models of Holographic Superconductors and Hall currents

We study general models of holographic superconductivity parametrized by four arbitrary functions of a neutral scalar field of the bulk theory. The models can accommodate several features of real superconductors, like arbitrary critical temperatures and critical exponents in a certain range, and perhaps impurities, boundary or thickness effects. We find analytical expressions for the critical exponents of the general model and show that they satisfy the Rushbrooke identity. An important subclass of models exhibits second order phase transitions. A study of the specific heat shows that general models can also describe holographic superconductors undergoing first, second and third (or higher) order phase transitions. We discuss how small deformations of the HHH model lead to the appearance of resonance peaks in the conductivity, which become narrower as the temperature is gradually decreased, without the need for tuning mass of the scalar to be close to the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. Finally, we investigate the inclusion of a generalized "theta term" producing Hall effect without magnetic field.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Models of Holographic superconductivity

We construct general models for holographic superconductivity parametrized by three couplings which are functions of a real scalar field and show that under general assumptions they describe superconducting phase transitions. While some features are universal and model independent, important aspects of the quantum critical behavior strongly depend on the choice of couplings, such as the order of the phase transition and critical exponents of second-order phase transitions. In particular, we study a one-parameter model where the phase transition changes from second to first order above some critical value of the parameter and a model with tunable critical exponents.

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