arXiv subjects

Kedar S. Kolekar

Publications and source records attributed to Kedar S. Kolekar.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Chiral Carroll string near Schwarzschild black hole

We obtain the action for the chiral Carroll string moving in a curved string-Carroll target spacetime from a Carroll expansion, in powers of the speed of light $c$, of the action for the relativistic closed bosonic string. Applying this setup to a classical closed bosonic string approaching the $4$-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole, we study the dynamics of the string when it behaves as a chiral Carroll string with the near-horizon string-Carroll expanded geometry as the target spacetime. We find that the chiral Carroll string can have either left-moving or right-moving fluctuations on the horizon, while exhibiting a non-trivial motion in the Rindler spacetime which depends on these horizon fluctuations.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Hydrodynamics in the Carrollian regime

Carroll hydrodynamics arises in the $c\to 0$ limit of relativistic hydrodynamics. Instances of its relevance include the Bjorken and Gubser flow models of heavy-ion collisions, where the ultrarelativistic nature of the flow makes the physics effectively Carrollian. In this paper, we explore the structure of hydrodynamics in what can be termed as the Carrollian regime, where instead of keeping only the leading terms in the $c\to 0$ limit of relativistic hydrodynamics, we perform a small-$c$ expansion and retain the subleading terms as well. We do so both for perfect fluids as well as viscous fluids incorporating first order derivative corrections. As apposite applications of the formalism, we utilize the subleading terms to compute modifications to the Bjorken and Gubser flow equations which bring in, in particular, dependence on rapidity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Strings near black holes are Carrollian -- Part II

We study classical closed bosonic strings probing the near-horizon region of a non-extremal black hole and show that this corresponds to understanding string theory in the Carroll regime. This is done by first performing a Carroll expansion and then a near-horizon expansion of a closed relativistic string, subsequently showing that they agree. Concretely, we expand the phase space action in powers of $c^2$, where $c$ is the speed of light, assuming that the target space admits a string Carroll expansion (where two directions are singled out) and show that there exist two different Carroll strings: a magnetic and an electric string. The magnetic string has a Lorentzian worldsheet, whereas the worldsheet of the electric string is Carrollian. The geometry near the horizon of a four-dimensional (4D) Schwarzschild black hole takes the form of a string Carroll expansion (a 2D Rindler space fibred over a 2-sphere). We show that the solution space of relativistic strings near the horizon bifurcates and the two sectors precisely match with the magnetic/electric Carroll strings with an appropriate target space. Magnetic Carroll strings near a black hole shrink to a point on the two-sphere and either follow null geodesics or turn into folded strings on the 2D Rindler spacetime. Electric Carroll strings wrap the two-sphere and follow a massive geodesic in the Rindler space. Finally, we show that 4D non-extremal Kerr and Reissner-Nordström black holes also admit string Carroll expansions near their outer horizons, indicating that our formulation extends to generic non-extremal black holes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Strings near black holes are Carrollian

We demonstrate that strings near the horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole, when viewed by a stationary observer at infinity, probe a string Carroll geometry, where the effective lightspeed is given by the distance from the horizon. We expand the Polyakov action in powers of this lightspeed to find a theory of Carrollian strings. We show that the string shrinks to a point to leading order near the horizon, which follows a null geodesic in a two-dimensional Rindler space. At the next-to-leading order the string oscillates in the embedding fields associated with the near-horizon two-sphere.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

Heavy-ion collisions, Gubser flow, and Carroll hydrodynamics

Gubser flow provides an analytic model for describing the spacetime dynamics of the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions. Along with boost and rotation invariance along the beam axis, the model assumes invariance under a combination of translations and special conformal transformations in the transverse plane, leading to a flow profile which evolves not just along the beam axis, but also radially. We argue that Gubser flow and its associated symmetry assumptions arise naturally as a consequence of Carrollian symmetries for a conformal Carroll fluid, thereby providing a dual geometric picture for the flow. Given the inherent ultrarelativistic nature of the flow, this duality with Carroll hydrodynamics - which arises in the $c \to 0$ limit of relativistic hydrodynamics, is natural. We provide a precise map between Gubser flow and the conformal Carroll fluid, appropriate to capture the duality between the two not just at the ideal level, but also with the inclusion of hydrodynamic derivative corrections.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

Carrollian Origins of Bjorken Flow

Bjorken flow is among the simplest models of fluids moving near the speed of light ($c$) while Carroll symmetry arises as a contraction of Poincaré group when $c \to 0$. We show that Bjorken flow and its phenomenological approximations are completely captured by Carrollian fluids. Carrollian symmetries arise on generic null surfaces and a fluid moving at $c$ is restricted to such a surface, thereby naturally inheriting the symmetries. Carrollian hydrodynamics is thus not exotic, but rather ubiquitous, and provides a concrete framework for fluids moving at or near the speed of light.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

Carroll covariant scalar fields in two dimensions

Conformal Carroll symmetry generically arises on null manifolds and is important for holography of asymptotically flat spacetimes, generic black hole horizons and tensionless strings. In this paper, we focus on two dimensional (2d) null manifolds and hence on the 2d Conformal Carroll or equivalently the 3d Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) algebra. Using Carroll covariance, we write the most general free massless Carroll scalar field theory and discover three inequivalent actions. Of these, two viz. the time-like and space-like actions, have made their appearance in literature before. We uncover a third that we call the mixed-derivative theory. As expected, all three theories enjoy off-shell BMS invariance. Interestingly, we find that the on-shell symmetry of mixed derivative theory is a single Virasoro algebra instead of the full BMS. We discuss potential applications to tensionless strings and flat holography.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Galilean Gauge Theories from Null Reductions

The procedure of null reduction provides a concrete way of constructing field theories with Galilean invariance. We use this to examine Galilean gauge theories, viz. Galilean electrodynamics and Yang-Mills theories in spacetime dimensions 3 and 4. Different non-relativistic conformal symmetries arise in these contexts: Schr{ö}dinger symmetry in $d=3$ and Galilean conformal symmetry in $d=4$. A canonical analysis further reveals that the symmetries enhance to their infinite dimensional versions in phase space and pick up central extensions. In addition, for the Abelian theory, we discuss non-relativistic electro-magnetic duality in $d=3$ and its difference with the $d=4$ version. We also mention some quantum aspects for both Abelian and non-Abelian theories.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

BMS Field Theories and Weyl Anomaly

Two dimensional field theories with Bondi-Metzner-Sachs symmetry have been proposed as duals to asymptotically flat spacetimes in three dimensions. These field theories are naturally defined on null surfaces and hence are conformal cousins of Carrollian theories, where the speed of light goes to zero. In this paper, we initiate an investigation of anomalies in these field theories. Specifically, we focus on the BMS equivalent of Weyl invariance and its breakdown in these field theories and derive an expression for Weyl anomaly. Considering the transformation of partition functions under this symmetry, we derive a Carrollian Liouville action different from ones obtained in the literature earlier.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Schwarzschild de Sitter and extremal surfaces

We study extremal surfaces in the Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetime with real mass parameter. We find codim-2 timelike extremal surfaces stretching between the future and past boundaries that pass through the vicinity of the cosmological horizon in a certain limit. These are analogous to the surfaces in arXiv:1711.01107 [hep-th]. We also find spacelike surfaces that never reach the future/past boundaries but stretch indefinitely through the extended Penrose diagram, passing through the vicinity of the cosmological and Schwarzschild horizons in a certain limit. Further, these exhibit interesting structure for de Sitter space (zero mass) as well as in the extremal, or Nariai, limit.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

N-level ghost-spins and entanglement

Ghost-spins, 2-level spin-like variables with indefinite norm have been studied in previous work. Here we explore various $N$-level generalizations of ghost-spins. First we discuss a flavoured generalization comprising $N$ copies of the ghost-spin system, as well as certain ghost-spin chains which in the continuum limit lead to 2-dim $bc$-ghost CFTs with $O(N)$ flavour symmetry. Then we explore a symplectic generalization that involves antisymmetric inner products, and finally a ghost-spin system exhibiting $N$ irreducible levels. We also study entanglement properties. In all these cases, we show the existence of positive norm "correlated ghost-spin" states in two copies of ghost-spin ensembles obtained by entangling identical ghost-spins from each copy: these exhibit positive entanglement entropy.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

On $AdS_2$ holography from redux, renormalization group flows and $c$-functions

Extremal black branes upon compactification in the near horizon throat region are known to give rise to $AdS_2$ dilaton-gravity-matter theories. Away from the throat region, the background has nontrivial profile. We interpret this as holographic renormalization group flow in the 2-dim dilaton-gravity-matter theories arising from dimensional reduction of the higher dimensional theories here. The null energy conditions allow us to formulate a holographic c-function in terms of the 2-dim dilaton for which we argue a c-theorem subject to appropriate boundary conditions which amount to restrictions on the ultraviolet theories containing these extremal branes. At the infrared $AdS_2$ fixed point, the c-function becomes the extremal black brane entropy. We discuss the behaviour of this inherited c-function in various explicit examples, in particular compactified nonconformal branes, and compare it with other discussions of holographic c-functions. We also adapt the holographic renormalization group formulated in terms of radial Hamiltonian flow to 2-dim dilaton-gravity-scalar theories, which while not Wilsonian, gives qualitative insight into the flow equations and $β$-functions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

$AdS_2$ dilaton gravity from reductions of some nonrelativistic theories

We study dilaton-gravity theories in 2-dimensions obtained by dimensional reduction of higher dimensional nonrelativistic theories. Focussing on certain families of extremal charged hyperscaling violating Lifshitz black branes in Einstein-Maxwell-scalar theories with an extra gauge field in 4-dimensions, we obtain $AdS_2$ backgrounds in the near horizon throats. We argue that these backgrounds can be obtained in equivalent theories of 2-dim dilaton-gravity with an extra scalar, descending from the higher dimensional scalar, and an interaction potential with the dilaton. A simple subcase here is the relativistic black brane in Einstein-Maxwell theory. We then study linearized fluctuations of the metric, dilaton and the extra scalar about these $AdS_2$ backgrounds. The coefficient of the leading Schwarzian derivative term is proportional to the entropy of the (compactified) extremal black branes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Notes on hyperscaling violating Lifshitz and shear diffusion

We explore in greater detail our investigations of shear diffusion in hyperscaling violating Lifshitz theories in arXiv:1604.05092 [hep-th]. This adapts and generalizes the membrane-paradigm-like analysis of Kovtun, Son and Starinets for shear gravitational perturbations in the near horizon region given certain self-consistent approximations, leading to the shear diffusion constant on an appropriately defined stretched horizon. In theories containing a gauge field, some of the metric perturbations mix with some of the gauge field perturbations and the above analysis is somewhat more complicated. We find a similar near-horizon analysis can be obtained in terms of new field variables involving a linear combination of the metric and the gauge field perturbation resulting in a corresponding diffusion equation. Thereby as before, for theories with Lifshitz and hyperscaling violating exponents $z, θ$ satisfying $z<4-θ$ in four bulk dimensions, our analysis here results in a similar expression for the shear diffusion constant with power-law scaling with temperature suggesting universal behaviour in relation to the viscosity bound. For $z=4-θ$, we find logarithmic behaviour.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Hyperscaling violation and the shear diffusion constant

We consider holographic theories in bulk $(d+1)$-dimensions with Lifshitz and hyperscaling violating exponents $z,θ$ at finite temperature. By studying shear gravitational modes in the near-horizon region given certain self-consistent approximations, we obtain the corresponding shear diffusion constant on an appropriately defined stretched horizon, adapting the analysis of Kovtun, Son and Starinets. For generic exponents with $d-z-θ>-1$, we find that the diffusion constant has power law scaling with the temperature, motivating us to guess a universal relation for the viscosity bound. When the exponents satisfy $d-z-θ=-1$, we find logarithmic behaviour. This relation is equivalent to $z=2+d_{eff}$ where $d_{eff}=d_i-θ$ is the effective boundary spatial dimension (and $d_i=d-1$ the actual spatial dimension). It is satisfied by the exponents in hyperscaling violating theories arising from null reductions of highly boosted black branes, and we comment on the corresponding analysis in that context.

hep-th↗