Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Zhang-Yu Nie

Publications and source records attributed to Zhang-Yu Nie.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Dynamical evolution of spinodal decomposition in holographic superfluids

We study the nonlinear dynamical evolution of spinodal decomposition in a first-order superfluid phase transition using a simple holographic model in the probe limit. We first confirm the linear stability analysis based on quasinormal modes and verify the existence of a critical length scale related to a gradient instability -- negative speed of sound squared -- of the superfluid sound mode, which is a consequence of a negative thermodynamic charge susceptibility. We present a comparison between our case and the standard Cahn-Hilliard equation for spinodal instability, in which a critical length scale can be also derived based on a diffusive instability. We then perform several numerical tests which include the nonlinear time evolution directly from an unstable state and fast quenches from a stable to an unstable state in the spinodal region. Our numerical results provide a real time description of spinodal decomposition and phase separation in one and two spatial dimensions. We reveal the existence of four different stages in the dynamical evolution, and characterize their main properties. Finally, we investigate the strength of dynamical heterogeneity using the spatial variance of the local chemical potential and we correlate the latter to other features of the dynamical evolution.

hep-th↗

The local thermodynamic instability from negative susceptibility in a holographic superfluid with nonlinear terms

The local thermodynamic stability from the charge susceptibility of a holographic superfluid model at finite superfluid velocity is studied in the probe limit. Previous studies show that beyond a finite value of the superfluid velocity, the superfluid phase transition in the grand canonical ensemble becomes first order. We further reveal that in the canonical ensemble, the superfluid phase transition is still second order, and the difference indicates a section with negative susceptibility which means local thermodynamic instability beyond this superfluid velocity. However, we also meet the ``cave of wind'' behavior at larger superfluid velocity which complicate the phase diagram. We further study the influence of the two nonlinear terms $λ|ψ|^4$ and $τ|ψ|^6$ with parameters $λ$ and $τ$ on the condensate curves, and set appropriate values of $λ$ and $τ$ to remove the "cave of wind" region in the canonical ensemble to get a more elegant phase diagram and better represent the region with such instability, which is possible to be used to realize spontaneous formation of vortexes and quantum turbulence.

hep-th↗

Dynamical and thermodynamic crossovers in the supercritical region of a holographic superfluid model

Many physical systems, including classical fluids, present in their phase diagram the competition between two phases that are separated by a line of first-order phase transitions which terminates at a so-called critical point. Despite several proposals, in the supercritical region beyond the critical point, whether the two phases can still be distinguished and by which criterion remain open questions. In this work, we study the thermodynamics and linear dynamics of a holographic superfluid model with nonlinear potential terms in the supercritical region. We identify the presence of a dynamical crossover, akin to the liquid-like to gas-like Frenkel transition in supercritical fluids, and we define other separation lines of thermodynamic origin based on higher order derivatives of the free energy with respect to the charge density. Our results highlight the universal dynamical and thermodynamic features of supercritical systems from nuclear matter and classical fluids to superfluid systems.

hep-th↗

The holographic s+p model in 4D and 5D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity

We study the holographic s+p model in both four dimensional (4D) and five dimensional (5D) Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) gravity. We first show a phase diagram with the Gauss-Bonnet parameter fixed to a small value $α=10^{-7}$ to choose propitiate values of $q_p/q_s$. Then we fix the value of $q_p/q_s$ and plot $α-μ$ phase diagrams to show the influence of Gauss-Bonnet term on the phase transitions in both 4D and 5D bulk, respectively. The phase diagrams in 4D and 5D present the same qualitative features, indicating similarity of 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity with the 5D case in holography. We also study the influences of Gauss-Bonnet parameter on the special values of the fourth order nonlinear term parameters $λ_s$ and $λ_p$, below which the condensate grows to a different direction near the critical point, that is important in realizing 1st order superfluid phase transitions. Especially, we notice that these special values are different in the canonical and grand canonical ensembles, which is closely related to the study of the spinodal region, where the phase separations occurs with the linear instability at finite wave vector.

hep-th↗

Dynamical stability from quasi normal modes in 2nd, 1st and 0th order holographic superfluid phase transitions

We study a simple extension of the original Hartnoll, Herzog and Horowitz (HHH) holographic superfluid model with two nonlinear scalar self-interaction terms $λ|ψ|^4$ and $τ|ψ|^6$ in the probe limit. Depending on the value of $λ$ and $τ$, this setup allows us to realize a large spectrum of holographic phase transitions which are 2nd, 1st and 0th order as well as the ``cave of wind'' phase transition. We speculate the landscape pictures and explore the near equilibrium dynamics of the lowest quasinormal modes (QNMs) across the whole phase diagram at both zero and finite wave-vector. We find that the zero wave-vector results of QNMs correctly present the stability of the system under homogeneous perturbations and perfectly agree with the landscape analysis of homogeneous configurations in canonical ensemble. The zero wave-vector results also show that a 0th order phase transition cannot occur since it always corresponds to a global instability of the whole system. The finite wave-vector results show that under inhomogeneous perturbations, the unstable region is larger than that under only homogeneous perturbations, and the new boundary of instability match with the turning point of condensate curve in grand canonical ensemble, indicating a new explanation from the subsystem point of view. The additional unstable section also perfectly match the section with negative value of charge susceptibility.

hep-th↗

H-T phase diagrams of a holographic p-wave superfluid

We study the competition between the p-wave and the p+ip superfluid solutions in a holographic model with applied magnetic field intensity $H$. We find that when $H$ is turned on, both the grand potential and the critical temperature of the p+ip solution are shifted, while the p-wave solution is only slightly affected. Combining the effect of $H$ and back reaction parameter b, we build $H-T$ phase diagrams with a slit region of p+ip phase. The zero (or finite) value of $H$ at the starting point of the slit region is related to second (or first) order of the p-wave phase transition at zero magnetic intensity, which should be universal in systems with degenerate critical points (spinodal points) at zero magnetic field.

hep-th↗

Holographic superconductors in 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity with backreactions

We construct the holographic superconductors away from the probe limit in the consistent $D\rightarrow4$ Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We observe that, both for the ground state and excited states, the critical temperature first decreases then increases as the curvature correction tends towards the Chern-Simons limit in a backreaction dependent fashion. However, the decrease of the backreaction, the increase of the scalar mass, or the increase of the number of nodes will weaken this subtle effect of the curvature correction. Moreover, for the curvature correction approaching the Chern-Simons limit, we find that the gap frequency $ω_g/T_c$ of the conductivity decreases first and then increases when the backreaction increases in a scalar mass dependent fashion, which is different from the finding in the ($3+1$)-dimensional superconductors that increasing backreaction increases $ω_g/T_c$ in the full parameter space. The combination of the Gauss-Bonnet gravity and backreaction provides richer physics in the scalar condensates and conductivity in the ($2+1$)-dimensional superconductors.

hep-th↗

Holographic multi-condensate with nonlinear terms

We study the influence of nonlinear terms quartic of the charged fields, which do not change the critical points of single condensate solutions, on the phase structure of a holographic model with multi-condensate in probe limit. We include one s-wave order and one p-wave order charged under the same U(1) gauge field in the holographic model and study the influence of the three quartic nonlinear terms of the charged fields with coefficients $λ_s$, $λ_p$ and $λ_{sp}$ on the phase structure. We show the influence of each of the three parameters on the phase diagram with other two set to zero, respectively. With these nonlinear terms, we get more power on tuning the phase structure of the holographic system showing multi-condensate, and show how to get a reentrant phase transition as an example.

hep-th↗

Uniform quenching processes in a holographic s+p model with reentrance

We study the homogenous quenching processes in a holographic s+p model with reentrant phase transitions. We first realize the reentrant phase transition in the holographic model in probe limit and draw the phase diagram. Next, we compare the time evolution of the two condensates in two groups of numerical quenching experiments across the reentrant region, with different quenching speed as well as different width of the reentrant region, respectively. We also study the dynamical competition between the two orders in quenching processes from the normal phase to the superconductor phase.

hep-th↗

Holographic boiling and generalized thermodynamic description beyond local equilibrium

Tuning a very simple two-component holographic superfluid model, we can have a first order phase transition between two superfluid phases in the probe limit. Inspired by the potential landscape discussion, an intuitive physical picture for systems with first order phase transitions is provided. We stress that holography perfectly offers a generalized thermodynamic description of certain strongly coupled systems even out of local equilibrium, which enables us to carefully study domain wall structures of the system under first order phase transitions, either static or in real time dynamics. We numerically construct the 1D domain wall configuration and compute the surface tension of the domain wall from its generalized grand potential. We also numerically simulate the real time dynamics of a 2D bubble nucleation process (holographic boiling). The surface tension of the 1D domain wall nicely matches the final state of the 2D bubble nucleation process when the bubble radius is large enough.

hep-th↗

The holographic p+ip solution failed to win the competition in dRGT massive gravity

In this paper, the holographic p-wave superfluid model with charged complex vector field is studied in dRGT massive gravity beyond the probe limit. The stability of p-wave and p+ip solutions are compared in the grand canonical ensemble. The p-wave solution always get lower value of grand potential than the p+ip solution, showing that the holographic system still favors an anisotropic (p-wave) solution even with considering a massive gravity theory in bulk. In the holographic superconductor models with dRGT massive gravity in bulk, a key sailing symmetry is found to be violated by fixing the reference metric parameter $c_0$. Therefore, in order to get the dependence of condensate and grand potential on temperature, different values of horizon radius should be considered in numerical work. With a special choice of model parameters, we further study the dependence of critical back-reaction strength on the graviton mass parameter, beyond which the superfluid phase transition become first order. We also give the dependence of critical temperature on the back reaction strength $b$ and graviton mass parameter $m^2$.

hep-th↗

Vortex Lattice in a Rotating Holographic Superfluid

By utilizing the AdS/CFT correspondence, we explore the dynamics of strongly coupled superfluid vortices in a disk with constant angular velocity. Each vortex in the vortex lattice is quantized with vorticity one from the direct inspection of their phases. As the angular velocity of the disk is greater than a critical value, the first vortex will be excited as expected from theoretical predictions. The subsequent two and more vortices are also generated by increasingly rotating the disk, resulting in the remarkable step transitions for the angular velocity to excite each individual vortex. When the vortex number is large enough, the density of vortices is found to be linearly proportional to the angular velocity, which matches the Feynman relation very well.

hep-th↗

Competing s-wave orders from Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity

In this paper, the holographic superconductor model with two s-wave orders from 4+1 dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity is explored in the probe limit. At different values of the Gauss-Bonnet coefficient $α$, we study the influence of tuning the mass and charge parameters of the bulk scalar field on the free energy curve of condensed solution with signal s-wave order, and compare the difference of tuning the two different parameters while the changes of the critical temperature are the same. Based on the above results, it is indicated that the two free energy curves of different s-wave orders can have one or two intersection points, where two typical phase transition behaviors of the s+s coexistent phase, including the reentrant phase transition near the Chern-Simons limit $α=0.25$, can be found. We also give an explanation to the nontrivial behavior of the $T_c-α$ curves near the Chern-Simons limit, which might be heuristic to understand the origin of the reentrant behavior near the Chern-Simons limit.

hep-th↗

Split degenerate states and stable p+ip phases from holography

In this paper, we investigate the p+$i$p superfluid phases in the complex vector field holographic p-wave model. We find that in the probe limit, the p+$i$p phase and the p-wave phase are equally stable, hence the p and $i$p orders can be mixed with an arbitrary ratio to form more general p+$λi$p phases, which are also equally stable with the p-wave and p+$i$p phases. As a result, the system possesses a degenerate thermal state in the superfluid region. We further study the case with considering the back reaction on the metric, and find that the degenerate ground states will be separated into p-wave and p+$i$p phases, and the p-wave phase is more stable. Finally, due to the different critical temperature of the zeroth order phase transitions from p-wave and p+$i$p phases to the normal phase, there is a temperature region where the p+$i$p phase exists but the p-wave phase doesn't. In this region we find the stable p+$i$p phase for the first time.

hep-th↗

Phase transitions in a holographic s+p model with backreaction

In a previous paper (arXiv:1309.2204, JHEP 1311 (2013) 087), we present a holographic s+p superconductor model with a scalar triplet charged under an SU(2) gauge field in the bulk. We also study the competition and coexistence of the s-wave and p-wave orders in the probe limit. In this work we continue to study the model by considering the full back-reaction The model shows a rich phase structure and various condensate behaviors such as the "n-type" and "u-type" ones, which are also known as reentrant phase transitions in condensed matter physics. The phase transitions to the p-wave phase or s+p coexisting phase become first order in strong back-reaction cases. In these first order phase transitions, the free energy curve always forms a swallow tail shape, in which the unstable s+p solution can also play an important role. The phase diagrams of this model are given in terms of the dimension of the scalar order and the temperature in the cases of eight different values of the back reaction parameter, which show that the region for the s+p coexisting phase is enlarged with a small or medium back reaction parameter, but is reduced in the strong back-reaction cases.

hep-th↗

P-T phase diagram of a holographic s+p model from Gauss-Bonnet gravity

In this paper, we study the holographic s+p model in 5-dimensional bulk gravity with the Gauss-Bonnet term. We work in the probe limit and give the $Δ$-T phase diagrams at three different values of the Gauss-Bonnet coefficient to show the effect of the Gauss-Bonnet term. We also construct the P-T phase diagrams for the holographic system using two different definitions of the pressure and compare the results.

hep-th↗

Competition between the s-wave and p-wave superconductivity phases in a holographic model

We build a holographic superconductor model with a scalar triplet charged under an SU(2) gauge field in the bulk. In this model, the s-wave and p-wave condensates can be consistently realized. We find that there are totally four phases in this model, namely, the normal phase without any condensate, s-wave phase, p-wave phase and the s+p coexisting phase. By calculating Gibbs free energy, the s+p coexisting phase turns out to be thermodynamically favored once it can appear. The phase diagram with the dimension of the scalar operator and temperature is drawn. The temperature range for the s+p coexisting phase is very narrow, which shows the competition between the s-wave and p-wave orders in the superconductor model.

hep-th↗

Holographic Forced Fluid Dynamics in Non-relativistic Limit

We study the thermodynamics and non-relativistic hydrodynamics of the holographic fluid on a finite cutoff surface in the Gauss-Bonnet gravity. It is shown that the isentropic flow of the fluid is equivalent to a radial component of gravitational field equations. We use the non-relativistic fluid expansion method to study the Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton system with a negative cosmological constant, and obtain the holographic incompressible forced Navier-Stokes equations of the dual fluid at AdS boundary and at a finite cutoff surface, respectively. The concrete forms of external forces are given.

hep-th↗