arXiv subjects

Oriol Pujolas

Publications and source records attributed to Oriol Pujolas.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

A Natural origin for the LHCb anomalies

The anomalies recently found by the LHCb collaboration in $B$-meson decays seem to point towards the existence of new physics coupled non-universally to muons and electrons. We show that a beyond-the-Standard-Model dynamics with these features naturally arises in models with a warped extra-dimension that aim to solve the electroweak Hierarchy Problem. The attractiveness of our set-up is the fact that the dynamics responsible for generating the flavor anomalies is automatically present, being provided by the massive Kaluza--Klein excitations of the electroweak gauge bosons. The flavor anomalies can be easily reproduced by assuming that the bottom and muon fields have a sizable amount of compositeness, while the electron is almost elementary. Interestingly enough, this framework correlates the flavor anomalies to a pattern of corrections in the electroweak observables and in flavor-changing processes. In particular the deviations in the bottom and muon couplings to the $Z$-boson and in $ΔF = 2$ flavor-changing observables are predicted to be close to the present experimental bounds, and thus potentially testable in near-future experiments.

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arXiv2017

A Natural extra-dimensional origin for the LHCb anomalies

We study the possibility of explaining the recently found anomalies in B-meson decays within scenarios with a composite Higgs boson. This class of models provides a natural way to fit the experimental results, interpreting the anomalies as the result of the exchange of heavy vector resonances with electroweak quantum numbers. The anomalies are tightly related to deviations in Delta F = 2 transitions and to deformations of the Z and W couplings, whose size is of the order of the present experimental bounds. This leads to a very predictive scenario which could be soon tested at collider experiments.

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arXiv2017

Viscosity bound violation in holographic solids and the viscoelastic response

We argue that the Kovtun--Son--Starinets (KSS) lower bound on the viscosity to entropy density ratio holds in fluid systems but is violated in solid materials with a non-zero shear elastic modulus. We construct explicit examples of this by applying the standard gauge/gravity duality methods to massive gravity and show that the KSS bound is clearly violated in black brane solutions whenever the massive gravity theories are of solid type. We argue that the physical reason for the bound violation relies on the viscoelastic nature of the mechanical response in these materials. We speculate on whether any real-world materials can violate the bound and discuss a possible generalization of the bound that involves the ratio of the shear elastic modulus to the pressure.

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arXiv2016

Light dilatons in warped space: Higgs boson and LHCb anomalies

We study the extension of the Standard Model (SM) with a light dilaton in a five dimensional warped model. In particular, we analyze the coupling of the dilaton with the SM matter fields, compare the model predictions with Electroweak Precisions Tests and find the corresponding bounds on the mass of the lightest Kaluza-Klein modes. We also investigate the possibility that the Higgs-like resonance found at the LHC can be a dilaton. Finally, we show that our set-up can also provide an explanation of the anomalies recently observed in $B$-meson decays.

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arXiv2016

On holographic disorder-driven metal-insulator transitions

We give a minimal holographic model of a disorder-driven metal-insulator transition. It consists in a CFT with a charge sector and a translation-breaking sector that interact in the most generic way allowed by the symmetries and by dynamical consistency. In the gravity dual, it reduces to a Massive Gravity-Maxwell model with new direct couplings between the Maxwell and metric that are allowed when gravity is massive. We show that, generically, the effect of disorder is to decrease the DC electrical conductivity. This happens to such an extent that the conductivity does not obey any lower bound and can be very small in the insulating phase. In some cases, the large disorder limit produces gradient instabilities that hint at the formation of modulated phases.

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arXiv2016

On Effective Holographic Mott Insulators

We present a class of holographic models that behave effectively as prototypes of Mott insulators, materials where electron-electron interactions dominate transport phenomena. The main ingredient in the gravity dual is that the gauge-field dynamics contains self-interactions by way of a particular type of non-linear electrodynamics. The electrical response in these models exhibits typical features of Mott-like states: i) the low-temperature DC conductivity is unboundedly low; ii) metal-insulator transitions appear by varying various parameters; iii) for large enough self-interaction strength, the conductivity can even decrease with increasing doping (density of carriers), which appears as a sharp manifestation of `traffic-jam'-like behaviour; iv) the insulating state becomes very unstable towards superconductivity at large enough doping. We exhibit some of the properties of the resulting insulator-superconductor transition, which is sensitive to the amount of disorder in a specific way. These models imply a clear and generic correlation between Mott behaviour and significant effects in the nonlinear electrical response. We compute the nonlinear current-voltage curve in our model and find that indeed at large voltage the conductivity is largely reduced.

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arXiv2016

On dilatons and the LHC diphoton excess

We study soft wall models that can embed the Standard Model and a naturally light dilaton. Exploiting the full capabilities of these models we identify the parameter space that allows to pass Electroweak Precision Tests with a moderate Kaluza-Klein scale, around $2$ TeV. We analyze the coupling of the dilaton with Standard Model (SM) fields in the bulk, and discuss two applications: i) Models with a light dilaton as the first particle beyond the SM pass quite easily all observational tests even with a dilaton lighter than the Higgs. However the possibility of a 125 GeV dilaton as a Higgs impostor is essentially disfavored; ii) We show how to extend the soft wall models to realize a 750 GeV dilaton that could explain the recently reported diphoton excess at the LHC.

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arXiv2015

On light dilaton extensions of the Standard Model

We discuss the presence of a light dilaton in Conformal Field Theories deformed by a single scalar operator, in the holographic realization consisting of confining Renormalization Group flows. Then, we apply this formalism to study the extension of the Standard Model with a light dilaton in a 5D warped model. We study the spectrum of scalar and vector perturbations, compare the model predictions with Electroweak Precision Tests and find the corresponding bounds for the lightest modes. Finally, we analyze the possibility that the Higgs resonance found at the LHC be a dilaton.

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arXiv2015

Solid Holography and Massive Gravity

Momentum dissipation is an important ingredient in condensed matter physics that requires a translation breaking sector. In the bottom-up gauge/gravity duality, this implies that the gravity dual is massive. We start here a systematic analysis of holographic massive gravity (HMG) theories, which admit field theory dual interpretations and which, therefore, might store interesting condensed matter applications. We show that there are many phases of HMG that are fully consistent effective field theories and which have been left overlooked in the literature. The most important distinction between the different HMG phases is that they can be clearly separated into solids and fluids. This can be done both at the level of the unbroken spacetime symmetries as well as concerning the elastic properties of the dual materials. We extract the modulus of rigidity of the solid HMG black brane solutions and show how it relates to the graviton mass term. We also consider the implications of the different HMGs on the electric response. We show that the types of response that can be consistently described within this framework is much wider than what is captured by the narrow class of models mostly considered so far.

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arXiv2014

Holographic Polarons, the Metal-Insulator Transition and Massive Gravity

Massive gravity is holographically dual to `realistic' materials with momentum relaxation. The dual graviton potential encodes the phonon dynamics and it allows for a much broader diversity than considered so far. We construct a simple family of isotropic and homogeneous materials that exhibit an interaction-driven Metal-Insulator transition. The transition is triggered by the formation of polarons -- phonon-electron quasi-bound states that dominate the conductivities, shifting the spectral weight above a mass gap. We characterize the polaron gap, width and dispersion.

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arXiv2014

Emergent Lorentz invariance from Strong Dynamics: Holographic examples

We explore the phenomenon of emergent Lorentz invariance in strongly coupled theories. The strong dynamics is handled using the gauge/gravity correspondence. We analyze how the renormalization group flow towards Lorentz invariance is reflected in the two-point functions of local operators and in the dispersion relations of the bound states. The deviations of these observables from the relativistic form at low energies are found to be power-law suppressed by the ratio of the infrared and ultraviolet scales. We show that in a certain subclass of models the velocities of the light bound states stay close to the emergent `speed of light' even at high energies. We comment on the implications of our results for particle physics and condensed matter.

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arXiv2014

Naturally light dilatons from nearly marginal deformations

We discuss the presence of a light dilaton in CFTs deformed by a nearly-marginal operator O, in the holographic realizations consisting of confining RG flows that end on a soft wall. Generically, the deformations induce a condensate , and the dilaton mode can be identified as the fluctuation of . We obtain a mass formula for the dilaton as a certain average along the RG flow. The dilaton is naturally light whenever i) confinement is reached fast enough (such as via the condensation of O) and ii) the beta function is small (walking) at the condensation scale. These conditions are satisfied for a class of models with a bulk pseudo-Goldstone boson whose potential is nearly flat at small field and exponential at large field values. Thus, the recent observation by Contino, Pomarol and Rattazzi holds in CFTs with a single nearly-marginal operator. We also discuss the holographic method to compute the condensate , based on solving the first-order nonlinear differential equation that the beta function satisfies.

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arXiv2011

The Imperfect Fluid behind Kinetic Gravity Braiding

We present a standard hydrodynamical description for non-canonical scalar field theories with kinetic gravity braiding. In particular, this picture applies to the simplest galileons and k-essence. The fluid variables not only have a clear physical meaning but also drastically simplify the analysis of the system. The fluid carries charges corresponding to shifts in field space. This shift-charge current contains a spatial part responsible for diffusion of the charges. Moreover, in the incompressible limit, the equation of motion becomes the standard diffusion equation. The fluid is indeed imperfect because the energy flows neither along the field gradient nor along the shift current. The fluid has zero vorticity and is not dissipative: there is no entropy production, the energy-momentum is exactly conserved, the temperature vanishes and there is no shear viscosity. Still, in an expansion around a perfect fluid one can identify terms which correct the pressure in the manner of bulk viscosity. We close by formulating the non-trivial conditions for the thermodynamic equilibrium of this imperfect fluid.

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arXiv2011

Flux Periodicities and Quantum Hair on Holographic Superconductors

Superconductors in a cylindrical geometry respond periodically to a cylinder-threading magnetic flux, with the period changing from hc/2e to hc/e depending on whether the Aharonov-Bohm effects are suppressed or not. We show that Holographic Superconductors present a similar phenomenon, and that the different periodicities follow from classical no-hair theorems. We also give the Ginzburg-Landau description of the period-doubling phenomenon.

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arXiv2011

Supersymmetric Aether

It has been suggested by Groot Nibbelink and Pospelov that Lorentz invariance can be an emergent symmetry of low-energy physics provided the theory enjoys a non-relativistic version of supersymmetry. We construct a model that realizes the latter symmetry dynamically: it breaks Lorentz invariance but leaves the supersymmetry generators intact. The model is a supersymmetric extension of the dynamical aether theory of Jacobson and Mattingly. It shows rich dynamics and possesses a family of inequivalent vacua realizing different symmetry breaking patterns. In particular, we find stable vacua that break spontaneously spatial isotropy. Supersymmetry breaking terms give masses to fermionic and bosonic partners of the aether field. We comment on the coupling of the model to supergravity and on the implications for Horava gravity.

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arXiv2010

Imperfect Dark Energy from Kinetic Gravity Braiding

We introduce a large class of scalar-tensor models with interactions containing the second derivatives of the scalar field but not leading to additional degrees of freedom. These models exhibit peculiar features, such as an essential mixing of scalar and tensor kinetic terms, which we have named kinetic braiding. This braiding causes the scalar stress tensor to deviate from the perfect-fluid form. Cosmology in these models possesses a rich phenomenology, even in the limit where the scalar is an exact Goldstone boson. Generically, there are attractor solutions where the scalar monitors the behaviour of external matter. Because of the kinetic braiding, the position of the attractor depends both on the form of the Lagrangian and on the external energy density. The late-time asymptotic of these cosmologies is a de Sitter state. The scalar can exhibit phantom behaviour and is able to cross the phantom divide with neither ghosts nor gradient instabilities. These features provide a new class of models for Dark Energy. As an example, we study in detail a simple one-parameter model. The possible observational signatures of this model include a sizeable Early Dark Energy and a specific equation of state evolving into the final de-Sitter state from a healthy phantom regime.

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arXiv2010

Models of non-relativistic quantum gravity: the good, the bad and the healthy

Horava's proposal for non-relativistic quantum gravity introduces a preferred time foliation of space-time which violates the local Lorentz invariance. The foliation is encoded in a dynamical scalar field which we call `khronon'. The dynamics of the khronon field is sensitive to the symmetries and other details of the particular implementations of the proposal. In this paper we examine several consistency issues present in three non-relativistic gravity theories: Horava's projectable theory, the healthy non-projectable extension, and a new extension related to ghost condensation. We find that the only model which is free from instabilities and strong coupling is the non-projectable one. We elaborate on the phenomenology of the latter model including a discussion of the couplings of the khronon to matter. In particular, we obtain the parameters of the post-Newtonian expansion in this model and show that they are compatible with current observations.

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arXiv2008

Micro Black Holes and the Democratic Transition

Unitarity implies that the evaporation of microscopic quasi-classical black holes cannot be universal in different particle species. This creates a puzzle, since it conflicts with the thermal nature of quasi-classical black holes, according to which all the species should see the same horizon and be produced with the same Hawking temperatures. We resolve this puzzle by showing that for the microscopic black holes, on top the usual quantum evaporation time, there is a new time-scale which characterizes a purely classical process during which the black hole looses the ability to differentiate among the species, and becomes democratic. We demonstrate this phenomenon in a well-understood framework of large extra dimensions, with a number of parallel branes. An initially non-democratic black hole is the one localized on one of the branes, with its high-dimensional Schwarzschild radius being much shorter than the interbrane distance. Such a black hole seemingly cannot evaporate into the species localized on the other branes, that are beyond its reach. We demonstrate that in reality the system evolves classically in time, in such a way that the black hole accretes the neighboring branes. The end result is a completely democratic static configuration, in which all the branes share the same black hole, and all the species are produced with the same Hawking temperature. Thus, just like their macroscopic counterparts, the microscopic black holes are universal bridges to the hidden sector physics.

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