arXiv subjects

Luis Melgar

Publications and source records attributed to Luis Melgar.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Holographic quenches and anomalous transport

We study the response of the chiral magnetic effect due to continuous quenches induced by time dependent electric fields within holography. Concretely, we consider a holographic model with dual chiral anomaly and compute the electric current parallel to a constant, homogeneous magnetic field and a time dependent electric field in the probe approximation. We explicitly solve the PDEs by means of pseudospectral methods in spatial and time directions and study the transition to an universal "fast" quench response. Moreover, we compute the amplitudes, i.e.,~residues of the quasi normal modes, by solving the (ODE) Laplace transformed equations. We investigate the possibility of considering the asymptotic growth rate of the amplitudes as a well defined notion of initial time scale for linearized systems. Finally, we highlight the existence of Landau level resonances in the electrical conductivity parallel to a magnetic field at finite frequency and show explicitly that these only appear in presence of the anomaly. We show that the existence of these resonances induces, among others, a long-lived AC electric current once the electric field is switched off.

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arXiv2017

Holographic DC conductivity and Onsager relations

Within holography the DC conductivity can be obtained by solving a system of Stokes equations for an auxiliary fluid living on the black hole horizon. We show that these equations can be derived from a novel variational principle involving a functional that depends on the fluid variables of interest as well as the time reversed quantities. This leads to simple derivation of the Onsager relations for the conductivity. We also obtain the relevant Stokes equations for bulk theories of gravity in four dimensions including a $\vartheta F\wedge F$ term in the Lagrangian, where $\vartheta$ is a function of dynamical scalar fields. We discuss various realisations of the anomalous Hall conductivity that this term induces and also solve the Stokes equations for holographic lattices which break translations in one spatial dimension.

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arXiv2017

DC Conductivity and Higher Derivative Gravity

For Gauss-Bonnet gravity and in the context of holography we show how the thermal DC conductivity can be obtained by solving a generalised system of Stokes equations for an auxiliary fluid on a curved black hole horizon. For more general higher derivative theories of gravity coupled to gauge-fields, we also analyse the linearised thermal and electric currents that are produced by DC thermal and electric sources. We show how suitably defined DC transport current fluxes of the dual field theory are given by current fluxes defined at the black horizon.

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arXiv2017

Holographic thermal DC response in the hydrodynamic limit

We consider black hole solutions of Einstein gravity that describe deformations of CFTs at finite temperature in which spatial translations have been broken explicitly. We focus on deformations that are periodic in the non-compact spatial directions, which effectively corresponds to considering the CFT on a spatial torus with a non-trivial metric. We apply a DC thermal gradient and show that in a hydrodynamic limit the linearised, local thermal currents can be determined by solving linearised, forced Navier-Stokes equations for an incompressible fluid on the torus. We also show how sub-leading corrections to the thermal current can be calculated as well as showing how the full stress tensor response that is generated by the DC source can be obtained. We also compare our results with the fluid-gravity approach.

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arXiv2017

Thermal backflow in CFTs

We study the thermal transport properties of general conformal field theories (CFTs) on curved spacetimes in the leading order viscous hydrodynamic limit. At the level of linear response, we show that the thermal transport is governed by a system of forced linearised Navier-Stokes equations on a curved space. Our setup includes CFTs in flat spacetime that have been deformed by spatially dependent and periodic local temperature variations or strains that have been applied to the CFT, and hence is relevant to CFTs arising in condensed matter systems at zero charge density. We provide specific examples of deformations which lead to thermal backflow driven by a DC source: that is, the thermal currents locally flow in the opposite direction to the applied DC thermal source. We also consider thermal transport for relativistic quantum field theories that are not conformally invariant.

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arXiv2016

DC Conductivity of Magnetised Holographic Matter

We consider general black hole solutions of Einstein-Maxwell-scalar theory that are holographically dual to conformal field theories at finite charge density with non-vanishing magnetic fields and local magnetisation currents, which generically break translation invariance explicitly. We show that the thermoelectric DC conductivity of the field theory can be obtained by solving a system of generalised Stokes equations on the black hole horizon. For various examples, including Q-lattices and one-dimensional lattices, we solve the Stokes equations explicitly and obtain expressions for the DC conductivity in terms of the solution at the black hole horizon.

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arXiv2014

Anomalous massless modes

Some years ago Anton Yu. Alekseev et al. conjectured the existence of massless modes in the spectrum of excitations ("anomalous massless modes") building upon certain similarities between a spontaneous symmetry breaking and the interplay of axial and vector symmetries in an anomalous theory. We reinterpret the analogy and argue that the presence of these modes is ensured in any (even) number of dimensions only by the excitation of certain anomaly-induced terms called Schwinger terms. In 1+1 dimensions the anomalous massless mode corresponds to the charge density wave present in a Luttinger liquid. In 3+1 dimensions, we identify the anomalous massless mode with the so-called chiral magnetic wave. Our analysis shows that both modes arise as a consequence of the same physics.

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arXiv2014

Anomalous Transport in Holographic Chiral Superfluids via Kubo Formulae

We study anomalous conductivities in Chiral Superfluids in the framework of two different holographic models, by means of Kubo formulae. In addition, we point out the existence of an anomalous transport phenomenon that consists in the presence of a charge density when the superfluid velocity is aligned with a magnetic field. It has been pointed out recently that certain chiral conductivities in holographic superfluids exhibit universal behavior at zero temperature. We show that anomalous conductivities always stabilize at low temperatures in our setup. Even though the particular value they acquire is model-dependent, it seems to be robust and determined solely by the interplay between the broken symmetries and the anomalies.

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arXiv2014

Anomalous Magneto Response and the Stückelberg Axion in Holography

We study the magneto response with non-conserved currents in Holography. Non-conserved currents are dual to massive vector fields in AdS. We introduce the mass in a gauge invariant way via the Stückelberg mechanism. In particular we find generalizations of the Chiral Magnetic Effect, the Chiral Separation Effect and the Chiral Magnetic Wave. Since the associated charge is not conserved we need to source it explicitly by a coupling, the generalization of the chemical potential. In this setup we find that in general the anomalous transport phenomena are still realized. The values we find for non-zero mass connect however continuously to the values of the anomalous conductivities of the consistent currents. i.e. the proper chiral magnetic effect vanishes for all masses (as it does for the consistent current in the zero mass case) whereas the chiral separation effect is fully present. The generalization of the chiral magnetic wave shows that for small momenta there is no propagating wave but two purely absorptive modes (one of them diffusive). At higher momenta we recover the chiral magnetic wave as a combination of the two absorptive modes. We also study the negative magneto resistivity and find that it grows quadratically with the magnetic field. Since the (classical) $U(1)_A$ symmetry of QCD is not at all a symmetry at the quantum level we also argue that using massive vectors in AdS to model the axial singlet current might result in a more realistic holographic model of QCD and should be a good starting point to investigate the dynamics of anomalous transport in the strongly coupled quark gluon plasma.

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arXiv2014

Universality of Anomalous Transport for zero temperature Superfluids

We show that generic U(1) superfluids with a U(1)^3 anomaly feature universal anomalous transport at low temperature. This universal behavior had been encountered before for a class holographic models by performing explicit computations: anomalous conductivities were found to either vanish or to be 1/3 of the value they present for ordinary fluids. In this note we argue in favor of the fact that at zero temperature chiral conductivities are fully determined by anomaly coefficients. We also compute them and show explicitly where their particular value arises from. The proof is based on Ward Identities plus the physical input that at zero temperature all the fluid is in its superfluid component.

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arXiv2014

Holographic s+p Superconductors

We study the phase diagram of a holographic model realizing a U(2) global symmetry on the boundary and show that at low temperature a phase with both scalar s and vector p condensates exists. This is the s+p-wave phase where the global U(2) symmetry and also the spatial rotational symmetry are spontaneously broken. By studying the free energy we show that this phase is preferred when it exists. We also consider unbalanced configurations where a second chemical potential is turned on. They present a rich phase diagram characterized by the competition and coexistence of the s and p order parameters.

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arXiv2013

Holographic Superfluids and the Landau Criterion

We revisit the question of stability of holographic superfluids with finite superfluid velocity. Our method is based on applying the Landau criterion to the Quasinormal Mode (QNM) spectrum. In particular we study the QNMs related to the Goldstone modes of spontaneous symmetry breaking with linear and quadratic dispersions.In the linear case we show that the sound velocity becomes negative for large enough superfluid velocity and that the imaginary part of the quasinormal frequency moves to the upper half plane. Since the instability is strongest at finite wavelength, we take this as an indication for the existence of an inhomogeneous or striped condensed phase for large superfluid velocity. In the quadratic case the instability is present for arbitrarily small superfluid velocity.

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arXiv2013

Holographic Type II Goldstone bosons

The Goldstone theorem implies the appearance of an ungapped mode whenever a continuous global symmetry is spontaneously broken. In general it does not say anything about the precise form of the dispersion relation nor does it imply that there is one massless mode for each broken symmetry generator. It is a well-established fact that even for relativistic field theories in the presence of a chemical potential Goldstone modes with quadratic dispersion relation, the type II Goldstone bosons, appear in the spectrum. We develop two holographic models that feature type II Goldstone modes as part of the quasinormal mode spectrum. The models are based on simple generalizations with U(2) symmetry of the well-studied holographic s-wave superfluid. Our results include Goldstone modes without broken generators but with unusual realization of symmetries and a frequency dependent conductivity of striking resemblance to the one of Graphene.

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arXiv2012

Holographic Flow of Anomalous Transport Coefficients

We study the holographic flow of anomalous conductivities induced by gauge and gravitational Chern-Simons terms. We find that the contribution from the gauge Chern-Simons term gives rise to a flow that can be interpreted in terms of an effective, cutoff dependent chemical potential. In contrast the contribution of the gauge-gravitational Chern-Simons term is just the temperature squared and does not flow.

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arXiv2011

Gravitational Anomaly and Hydrodynamics

We study the anomalous induced current of a vortex in a relativistic fluid via the chiral vortical effect, which is analogous to the anomalous current induced by a magnetic field via the chiral magnetic effect. We perform this analysis at weak and strong coupling. We discuss inequivalent implementations to the chemical potential for an anomalous symmetry. At strong coupling we use a holographic model with a pure gauge and mixed gauge-gravitational Chern-Simons term in the action. We discuss the holographic renormalization and show that the Chern-Simons terms do not induce new divergences. Strong and weak coupling results agree precisely. We also point out that the holographic calculation can be done without a singular gauge field configuration on the horizon of the black hole.

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arXiv2011

Holographic Gravitational Anomaly and Chiral Vortical Effect

We analyze a holographic model with a pure gauge and a mixed gauge-gravitational Chern-Simons term in the action. These are the holographic implementations of the usual chiral and the mixed gauge-gravitational anomalies in four dimensional field theories with chiral fermions. We discuss the holographic renormalization and show that the gauge-gravitational Chern-Simons term does not induce new divergences. In order to cancel contributions from the extrinsic curvature at a boundary at finite distance a new type of counterterm has to be added however. This counterterm can also serve to make the Dirichlet problem well defined in case the gauge field strength vanishes on the boundary. A charged asymptotically AdS black hole is a solution to the theory and as an application we compute the chiral magnetic and chiral vortical conductivities via Kubo formulas. We find that the characteristic term proportional to T^2 is present also at strong coupling and that its numerical value is not renormalized compared to the weak coupling result.

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