arXiv subjects

Kristan Jensen

Publications and source records attributed to Kristan Jensen.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Holography, Entanglement Entropy, and Conformal Field Theories with Boundaries or Defects

We study entanglement entropy (EE) in conformal field theories (CFTs) in Minkowski space with a planar boundary or with a planar defect of any codimension. In any such boundary CFT (BCFT) or defect CFT (DCFT), we consider the reduced density matrix and associated EE obtained by tracing over the degrees of freedom outside of a (hemi-)sphere centered on the boundary or defect. Following Casini, Huerta, and Myers, we map the reduced density matrix to a thermal density matrix of the same theory on hyperbolic space. The EE maps to the thermal entropy of the theory on hyperbolic space. For BCFTs and DCFTs dual holographically to Einstein gravity theories, the thermal entropy is equivalent to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a hyperbolic black brane. We show that the horizon of the hyperbolic black brane coincides with the minimal area surface used in Ryu and Takayanagi's conjecture for the holographic calculation of EE. We thus prove their conjecture in these cases. We use our results to compute the Rényi entropies and EE in DCFTs in which the defect corresponds to a probe brane in a holographic dual.

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arXiv2013

The holographic dual of an EPR pair has a wormhole

We construct the holographic dual of two colored quasiparticles in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory entangled in a color singlet EPR pair. In the holographic dual the entanglement is encoded in a geometry of a non-traversable wormhole on the worldsheet of the flux tube connecting the pair. This gives a simple example supporting the recent claim by Maldacena and Susskind that EPR pairs and non-traversable wormholes are equivalent descriptions of the same physics.

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arXiv2013

Chiral conductivities and effective field theory

We construct the three-dimensional effective field theory which reproduces low-momentum static correlation functions in four-dimensional quantum field theories with U(1) axial anomalies and a dynamical vector gauge field, in thermal equilibrium. We compute radiative corrections to parity-violating chiral conductivities, to leading order in the effective theory. All of the anomaly-induced transport is susceptible to radiative corrections, except for certain two-point functions which are required by symmetry to vanish.

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arXiv2012

Moduli Spaces of Cold Holographic Matter

We use holography to study (3+1)-dimensional N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with gauge group SU(Nc), in the large-Nc and large-coupling limits, coupled to a single massless (n+1)-dimensional hypermultiplet in the fundamental representation of SU(Nc), with n=3,2,1. In particular, we study zero-temperature states with a nonzero baryon number charge density, which we call holographic matter. We demonstrate that a moduli space of such states exists in these theories, specifically a Higgs branch parameterized by the expectation values of scalar operators bilinear in the hypermultiplet scalars. At a generic point on the Higgs branch, the R-symmetry and gauge group are spontaneously broken to subgroups. Our holographic calculation consists of introducing a single probe Dp-brane into AdS5 times S^5, with p=2n+1=7,5,3, introducing an electric flux of the Dp-brane worldvolume U(1) gauge field, and then obtaining explicit solutions for the worldvolume fields dual to the scalar operators that parameterize the Higgs branch. In all three cases, we can express these solutions as non-singular self-dual U(1) instantons in a four-dimensional space with a metric determined by the electric flux. We speculate on the possibility that the existence of Higgs branches may point the way to a counting of the microstates producing a nonzero entropy in holographic matter. Additionally, we speculate on the possible classification of zero-temperature, nonzero-density states described holographically by probe D-branes with worldvolume electric flux.

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arXiv2012

Thermodynamics, gravitational anomalies and cones

By studying the Euclidean partition function on a cone, we argue that pure and mixed gravitational anomalies generate a "Casimir momentum" which manifests itself as parity violating coefficients in the hydrodynamic stress tensor and charge current. The coefficients generated by these anomalies enter at a lower order in the hydrodynamic gradient expansion than would be naively expected. In 1+1 dimensions, the gravitational anomaly affects coefficients at zeroth order in the gradient expansion. The mixed anomaly in 3+1 dimensions controls the value of coefficients at first order in the gradient expansion.

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arXiv2012

Towards hydrodynamics without an entropy current

We present a generating functional which describes the equilibrium thermodynamic response of a relativistic system to external sources. A variational principle gives rise to constraints on the response parameters of relativistic hydrodynamics without making use of an entropy current. Our method reproduces and extends results available in the literature. It also provides a technique for efficiently computing n-point zero-frequency hydrodynamic correlation functions without the need to solve the equations of hydrodynamics.

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arXiv2012

Triangle Anomalies, Thermodynamics, and Hydrodynamics

We consider 3+1-dimensional fluids with U(1)^3 anomalies. We use Ward identities to constrain low-momentum Euclidean correlation functions and obtain differential equations that relate two and three-point functions. The solution to those equations yields, among other things, the chiral magnetic conductivity. We then compute zero-frequency functions in hydrodynamics and show that the consistency of the hydrodynamic theory also fixes the anomaly-induced conductivities.

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arXiv2011

Parity-Violating Hydrodynamics in 2+1 Dimensions

We study relativistic hydrodynamics of normal fluids in two spatial dimensions. When the microscopic theory breaks parity, extra transport coefficients appear in the hydrodynamic regime, including the Hall viscosity, and the anomalous Hall conductivity. In this work we classify all the transport coefficients in first order hydrodynamics. We then use properties of response functions and the positivity of entropy production to restrict the possible coefficients in the constitutive relations. All the parity-breaking transport coefficients are dissipationless, and some of them are related to the thermodynamic response to an external magnetic field and to vorticity. In addition, we give a holographic example of a strongly interacting relativistic fluid where the parity-violating transport coefficients are computable.

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arXiv2011

Semi-Holographic Quantum Criticality

We identify the near-critical effective theory (EFT) for a wide class of low-temperature phase transitions found via holography. The EFT is of the semi-holographic type and describes both holographic Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) and second-order transitions with non-trivial scaling. It is a simple generalization of the Ginzburg-Landau-Wilson paradigm to systems with an emergent (or hidden) conformal sector. Having identified the near-critical EFT, we explore its basic phenomenology by computing critical exponents and low-frequency correlators.

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arXiv2011

Towards a holographic marginal Fermi liquid

We present an infinite class of 2+1 dimensional field theories which, after coupling to semi-holographic fermions, exhibit strange metallic behavior in a suitable large $N$ limit. These theories describe lattices of hypermultiplet defects interacting with parity-preserving supersymmetric Chern-Simons theories with $U(N) \times U(N)$ gauge groups at levels $\pm k$. They have dual gravitational descriptions in terms of lattices of probe M2 branes in $AdS_4 \times S^7/Z_k$ (for $N \gg 1, N \gg k^5$) or probe D2 branes in $AdS_4 \times CP^3$ (for $N \gg k \gg 1, N \ll k^5$). We discuss several challenges one faces in maintaining the success of these models at finite $N$, including backreaction of the probes in the gravity solutions and radiative corrections in the weakly coupled field theory limit.

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arXiv2010

Chiral anomalies and AdS/CMT in two dimensions

I clarify some recent confusion regarding the holographic description of finite-density systems in two dimensions. Notably, the chiral anomaly for symmetry currents in 2d conformal field theories (CFT) completely determines their correlators. The important exception is a CFT with a gauge theory to which we may couple an external current, as in the probe D3/D3 system or the putative dual to the charged BTZ black hole. These systems are analyzed with an eye for potential condensed matter applications.

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arXiv2010

Non Mean-Field Quantum Critical Points from Holography

We construct a class of quantum critical points with non-mean-field critical exponents via holography. Our approach is phenomenological. Beginning with the D3/D5 system at nonzero density and magnetic field which has a chiral phase transition, we simulate the addition of a third control parameter. We then identify a line of quantum critical points in the phase diagram of this theory, provided that the simulated control parameter has dimension less than two. This line smoothly interpolates between a second-order transition with mean-field exponents at zero magnetic field to a holographic Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition at larger magnetic fields. The critical exponents of these transitions only depend upon the parameters of an emergent infrared theory. Moreover, the non-mean-field scaling is destroyed at any nonzero temperature. We discuss how generic these transitions are.

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arXiv2010

A Holographic Fractional Topological Insulator

We give a holographic realization of the recently proposed low energy effective action describing a fractional topological insulator. In particular we verify that the surface of this hypothetical material supports a fractional quantum Hall current corresponding to half that of a Laughlin state.

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arXiv2010

More Holographic Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless Transitions

We find two systems via holography that exhibit quantum Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transitions. The first is the ABJM theory with flavor and the second is a flavored (1,1) little string theory. In each case the transition occurs at nonzero density and magnetic field. The BKT transition in the little string theory is the first example of a quantum BKT transition in (3+1) dimensions. As in the "original" holographic BKT transition in the D3/D5 system, the exponential scaling is destroyed at any nonzero temperature and the transition becomes second order. Along the way we construct holographic renormalization for probe branes in the ABJM theory and propose a scheme for the little string theory. Finally, we obtain the embeddings and (half of) the meson spectrum in the ABJM theory with massive flavor.

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arXiv2010

Holographic Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless Transitions

We find the first example of a quantum Berenzinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition in two spatial dimensions via holography. This transition occurs in the D3/D5 system at nonzero density and magnetic field. At any nonzero temperature, the BKT scaling is destroyed and the transition becomes second order with mean-field exponents. We go on to conjecture about the generality of quantum BKT transitions in two spatial dimensions.

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arXiv2010

A Holographic Quantum Critical Point at Finite Magnetic Field and Finite Density

We analyze the phase diagram of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with fundamental matter in the presence of a background magnetic field and nonzero baryon number. We identify an isolated quantum critical point separating two differently ordered finite density phases. The ingredients that give rise to this transition are generic in a holographic setup, leading us to conjecture that such critical points should be rather common. In this case, the quantum phase transition is second order with mean-field exponents. We characterize the neighborhood of the critical point at small temperatures and identify some signatures of a new phase dominated by the critical point. We also identify the line of transitions between the finite density and zero density phases. The line is completely determined by the mass of the lightest charged quasiparticle at zero density. Finally, we measure the magnetic susceptibility and find hints of fermion condensation at large magnetic field.

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arXiv2009

Hadronization at the AdS wall

We describe hadronization events, using the AdS/CFT Correspondence, which display many of the qualitative features expected in QCD. In particular we study the motion of strings with separating end points in a back-reacted hard wall geometry. The solutions show the development of a linear QCD-like string. The end points oscillate in the absence of string breaking. We introduce string breaking by hand and evolve the new state forward in time to observe the separation of two string segments. A kink associated with this breaking evolves to the end points of the string inducing rho meson production. We explicitly compute the rho meson production at the end point.

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arXiv2009

Light quark energy loss in strongly-coupled N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma

We compute the penetration depth of a light quark moving through a large $N_c$, strongly coupled $\mathcal N = 4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma using gauge/gravity duality and a combination of analytic and numerical techniques. We find that the maximum distance a quark with energy $E$ can travel through a plasma is given by $Δx(E) = (\mathcal C/T) (E/T \sqrtλ)^{{1}/{3}}$ with $\mathcal C \approx 0.5$.

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