arXiv subjects

Ulf Gran

Publications and source records attributed to Ulf Gran.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Plasmons in Holographic Ersatz Fermi Liquids

We solve an infrared effective holographic model of a non-Fermi liquid at finite temperature that satisfies Luttinger's theorem and incorporates long-range Coulomb interactions. Motivated by the absence of a Luttinger-counting Fermi surface in standard Reissner-Nordstrom holographic metals, we consider a Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory in a static anti-de Sitter-Schwarzschild background, coupled to an LU(1) gauge field rather than a conventional U(1) gauge field. By an appropriate choice of boundary conditions, we obtain a damped collective plasmon mode whose plasma frequency scales as predicted by Luttinger's theorem. We further analyze the density-density correlator in the absence of long-range Coulomb interactions and identify a contribution consistent with a Lindhard-like continuum.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Odd-parity effect and scale-dependent viscosity in atomic quantum gases

Two-dimensional electron gases are predicted to possess an anomalous ''tomographic'' transport regime that is marked by an odd-even effect in the relaxation times, with odd-parity deformations of the Fermi surface becoming long-lived in comparison to even-parity ones. In this work, we establish that neutral two-component atomic Fermi gases also exhibit this tomographic effect. By diagonalizing the Fermi liquid collision integral, we identify odd-parity modes with anomalously long lifetimes below temperatures $T\leq 0.15T_F$, which is within reach of cold atom experiments. Furthermore, in contrast to electron gases, we find that the odd-even effect in neutral gases is widely tuneable with interactions along the BCS-BEC crossover and is suppressed on the BEC side. We propose as an experimental signature of the odd-even effect the damping rate of quadrupole oscillations, which is anomalously enhanced due to the presence of long-lived odd-parity modes. Our findings suggest that the dynamics of two-dimensional Fermi gases is richer than previously thought and should include additional long-lived modes.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Nonequilibrium Relaxation and Odd-Even Effect in Finite-Temperature Electron Gases

Pauli blocking in Fermi liquids imposes strong phase-space constraints on quasiparticle lifetimes, leading to a well-known quadratic-in-temperature decay rate of quasiparticle modes at low temperatures. In two-dimensional systems, however, even longer-lived modes are predicted (dubbed ``odd-parity'' modes) that involve a collective deformation of the Fermi distribution. Here, we present an efficient method to evaluate the full spectrum of relaxational eigenmodes of a Fermi liquid within kinetic theory. We employ this method to study the experimentally relevant case of a Fermi liquid with screened Coulomb interactions and map out the decay rates of quasiparticle modes beyond the asymptotic low-temperature limit up to the Fermi temperature, thus covering the entire temperature range of typical experiments. We confirm the existence of anomalously long-lived odd-parity modes and provide a comprehensive classification and detailed analysis of the relaxation spectrum. In particular, we find that (i) the odd-parity effect in the decay rates extends to temperatures as large as $T=0.15T_F$, (ii) there is only a small number of long-lived odd-parity modes, with an infinite number of remaining modes that show standard Fermi-liquid scaling, and (iii) the ratio between the odd- and even-parity lifetimes is tunable with the Coulomb interaction strength, in addition to temperature, which reflects a difference in the microscopic relaxation mechanism of the modes. Our findings provide a comprehensive description of the nonequilibrium relaxation behavior of two-dimensional electron gases and bridge a significant gap in our understanding of these systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Shear viscosity in interacting two-dimensional Fermi liquids

In interaction-dominated two-dimensional electron gases at intermediate temperatures, electron transport is not diffusive as in the conventional Drude picture but instead hydrodynamic. The relevant transport coefficient in this regime is the shear viscosity. Here, we develop a numerically exact basis expansion to solve the Fermi liquid equation, and apply it to compute the shear viscosity of the electron gas with screened Coulomb interactions. Our calculations are valid at all temperatures and in particular describe the response beyond the asymptotic low-temperature limit, where perturbative approaches exist. We show that even in this low-temperature limit, there is a nonanalytic exchange contribution to the shear viscosity, highlighting the need for a full nonperturbative solution of the Fermi liquid equation. We hope that the techniques developed in this work will serve as a platform to determine the response of interacting Fermi liquids.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Anomalously long lifetimes in two-dimensional Fermi liquids

A precise characterization of the recently discovered crossover to hydrodynamic transport in electron liquids, and in particular of a conjectured exotic odd-parity transport regime, requires a full solution of the Fermi-liquid collision integral at all temperatures beyond state-of-the-art analytic leading-logarithmic approximations. We develop a general basis expansion of the linearized collision integral applicable at all temperatures, and employ this to determine the decay rates of Fermi surface perturbations in two-dimensional electron liquids. In particular, we provide exhaustive data on the decay rates for a new odd-parity regime, in which parity-even Fermi surface deformations decay rapidly but odd-parity modes are anomalously long lived. We find that this transport regime exists at fairly large temperatures $T \lesssim 0.1 T_F$, putting this regime within the reach of current experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Collective modes of polarizable holographic media in magnetic fields

We consider a neutral holographic plasma with dynamical electromagnetic interactions in a finite external magnetic field. The Coulomb interactions are introduced via mixed boundary conditions for the Maxwell gauge field. The collective modes at finite wave-vector are analyzed in detail and compared to the magneto-hydrodynamics results valid only at small magnetic fields. Surprisingly, at large magnetic field, we observe the appearance of two plasmon-like modes whose corresponding effective plasma frequency grows with the magnetic field and is not supported by any background charge density. Finally, we identify a mode collision which allows us to study the radius of convergence of the linearized hydrodynamics expansion as a function of the external magnetic field. We find that the radius of convergence in momentum space, related to the diffusive transverse electromagnetic mode, increases quadratically with the strength of the magnetic field.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Plasmons in Holographic Graphene

We demonstrate how self-sourced collective modes - of which the plasmon is a prominent example due to its relevance in modern technological applications - are identified in strongly correlated systems described by holographic Maxwell theories. The characteristic $ω\propto \sqrt{k}$ plasmon dispersion for 2D materials, such as graphene, naturally emerges from this formalism. We also demonstrate this by constructing the first holographic model containing this feature. This provides new insight into modeling such systems from a holographic point of view, bottom-up and top-down alike. Beyond that, this method provides a general framework to compute the dynamical charge response of strange metals, which has recently become experimentally accessible due to the novel technique of momentum-resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (M-EELS). This framework therefore opens up the exciting possibility of testing holographic models for strange metals against actual experimental data.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Transverse Collective Modes in Interacting Holographic Plasmas

We study in detail the transverse collective modes of simple holographic models in presence of electromagnetic Coulomb interactions. We render the Maxwell gauge field dynamical via mixed boundary conditions, corresponding to a double trace deformation in the boundary field theory. We consider three different situations: (i) a holographic plasma with conserved momentum, (ii) a holographic (dirty) plasma with finite momentum relaxation and (iii) a holographic viscoelastic plasma with propagating transverse phonons. We observe two interesting new features induced by the Coulomb interactions: a mode repulsion between the shear mode and the photon mode at finite momentum relaxation, and a propagation-to-diffusion crossover of the transverse collective modes induced by the finite electromagnetic interactions. Finally, at large charge density, our results are in agreement with the transverse collective mode spectrum of a charged Fermi liquid for strong interaction between quasi-particles, but with an important difference: the gapped photon mode is damped even at zero momentum. This property, usually referred to as anomalous attenuation, is produced by the interaction with a quantum critical continuum of states and might be experimentally observable in strongly correlated materials close to quantum criticality, e.g. in strange metals.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Holographic fundamental matter in multilayered media

We describe a strongly coupled layered system in 3+1 dimensions by means of a top-down D-brane construction. Adjoint matter is encoded in a large-$N_c$ stack of D3-branes, while fundamental matter is confined to $(2+1)$-dimensional defects introduced by a large-$N_f$ stack of smeared D5-branes. To the anisotropic Lifshitz-like background geometry, we add a single flavor D7-brane treated in the probe limit. Such bulk setup corresponds to a partially quenched approximation for the dual field theory. The holographic model sheds light on the anisotropic physics induced by the layered structure, allowing one to disentangle flavor physics along and orthogonal to the layers as well as identifying distinct scaling laws for various dynamical quantities. We study the thermodynamics and the fluctuation spectrum with varying valence quark mass or baryon chemical potential. We also focus on the density wave propagation in both the hydrodynamic and collisionless regimes where analytic methods complement the numerics, while the latter provides the only resource to address the intermediate transition regime.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Holographic Plasmon Relaxation with and without Broken Translations

We study the dynamics and the relaxation of bulk plasmons in strongly coupled and quantum critical systems using the holographic framework. We analyze the dispersion relation of the plasmonic modes in detail for an illustrative class of holographic bottom-up models. Comparing to a simple hydrodynamic formula, we entangle the complicated interplay between the three least damped modes and shed light on the underlying physical processes. Such as the dependence of the plasma frequency and the effective relaxation time in terms of the electromagnetic coupling, the charge and the temperature of the system. Introducing momentum dissipation, we then identify its additional contribution to the damping. Finally, we consider the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) of translational invariance. Upon dialing the strength of the SSB, we observe an increase of the longitudinal sound speed controlled by the elastic moduli and a decrease in the plasma frequency of the gapped plasmon. We comment on the condensed matter interpretation of this mechanism.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Holographic Plasmons

Since holography yields exact results, even in situations where perturbation theory is not applicable, it is an ideal framework for modeling strongly correlated systems. We extend previous holographic methods to take the dynamical charge response into account and use this to perform the first holographic computation of the dispersion relation for plasmons. As the dynamical charge response of strange metals can be measured using the new technique of momentum-resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (M-EELS), plasmon properties are the next milestone in verifying predictions from holographic models of new states of matter.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Holographic Response of Electron Clouds

In order to make progress towards more realistic models of holographic fermion physics, we use gauge/gravity duality to compute the dispersion relations for quasinormal modes and collective modes for the electron cloud background, i.e. the non-zero temperature version of the electron star. The results are compared to the corresponding results for the Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström black hole backgrounds, and the qualitative differences are highlighted and discussed.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Exotic Holographic Dispersion

For strongly interacting systems holographic duality is a powerful framework for computing e.g. dispersion relations to all orders in perturbation theory. Using the standard Reissner-Nordstöm black hole as a holographic model for a (strange) metal, we obtain exotic dispersion relations for both plasmon modes and quasinormal modes for certain intermediate values of the charge of the black hole. The obtained dispersion relations show dissipative behavior which we compare to the generic expectations from the Caldeira-Leggett model for quantum dissipation. Based on these considerations, we investigate how holography can predict higher order corrections for strongly coupled physics.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Supersymmetric geometries of IIA supergravity III

We find that (massive) IIA backgrounds that admit a $G_2\ltimes \mathbb{R}^8$ invariant Killing spinor must exhibit a null Killing vector field which leaves the Killing spinor invariant and that the rotation of the Killing vector field satisfies a certain $\mathfrak{g}_2$ instanton condition. This result together with those in [4] and [5] complete the classification of geometries of all (massive) IIA backgrounds that preserve one supersymmetry. We also explore the geometry of a class of backgrounds which admit a $G_2\ltimes \mathbb{R}^8$ invariant Killing spinor and where in addition an appropriate 1-form bilinear vanishes. In all cases, we express the fluxes of the theory in terms of the geometry.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Supersymmetric geometries of IIA supergravity II

We solve the Killing spinor equations of standard and massive IIA supergravities for a Killing spinor whose isotropy subgroup in Spin(9, 1) is SU(4) and identify the geometry of the spacetime. We demonstrate that the Killing spinor equations impose some mild constraints on the geometry of the spacetime which include the existence of a time-like Killing vector field which leaves the fields and the Killing spinor invariant.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Off-shell structure of twisted (2,0) theory

A $Q$-exact off-shell action is constructed for twisted abelian (2,0) theory on a Lorentzian six-manifold of the form $M_{1,5} = C\times M_4$, where $C$ is a flat two-manifold and $M_4$ is a general Euclidean four-manifold. The properties of this formulation, which is obtained by introducing two auxiliary fields, can be summarised by a commutative diagram where the Lagrangian and its stress-tensor arise from the $Q$-variation of two fermionic quantities $V$ and $λ^{μν}$. This completes and extends the analysis in [arXiv:1311.3300].

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Supersymmetric geometries of IIA supergravity I

IIA supergravity backgrounds preserving one supersymmetry locally admit four types of Killing spinors distinguished by the orbits of $Spin(9,1)$ on the space of spinors. We solve the Killing spinor equations of IIA supergravity with and without cosmological constant for Killing spinors representing two of these orbits, with isotropy groups $Spin(7)$ and $Spin(7)\ltimes\mathbb{R}^8$. In both cases, we identify the geometry of spacetime and express the fluxes in terms of the geometry. We find that the geometric constraints of backgrounds with a $Spin(7)\ltimes\mathbb{R}^8$ invariant Killing spinor are identical to those found for heterotic backgrounds preserving one supersymmetry.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Topologically gauged superconformal Chern-Simons matter theories

By coupling {\cal N}=8 superconformal matter to {\cal N}=8 superconformal Chern-Simons gravity in three dimensions we obtain theories with novel terms in the scalar potential leading to AdS_3 solutions and superconformal symmetry breaking. If we start from the theory derived by Bagger, Lambert and Gustavsson, our coupled theory either inherits the SO(4) gauge group or reduces it to SO(3). If the construction is instead based on a free matter theory we find that the gravitational topological gauging also requires the introduction of a Chern-Simons gauge sector resulting in a consistent theory for any SO(N) gauge group.

hep-th↗