No Arabic abstract
We use gauge/gravity duality to study simultaneously the mass spectrum and the thermodynamics of a generic quasi-conformal gauge theory, specified by its beta function. The beta function of a quasi-conformal theory almost vanishes, and the coupling is almost constant between two widely separated energy scales. Depending on whether the gravity dual has a black hole or not, the mass spectrum is either a spectrum of quasinormal oscillations or a normal T=0 mass spectrum. The mass spectrum is quantitatively correlated with the thermal properties of the system. As the theory approaches conformality, the masses have to vanish. We show that in this limit, the masses calculated via gauge/gravity duality satisfy expected scaling properties.
We use gauge/gravity duality to study the thermodynamics of a generic almost conformal theory, specified by its beta function. Three different phases are identified, a high temperature phase of massless partons, an intermediate quasi-conformal phase and a low temperature confining phase. The limit of a theory with infrared fixed point, in which the coupling does not run to infinity, is also studied. The transitions between the phases are of first order or continuous, depending on the parameters of the beta function. The results presented follow from gauge/gravity duality; no specific boundary theory is assumed, only its beta function.
We study a gauge/gravity model for the thermodynamics of a gauge theory with one running coupling. The gravity side contains an ansatz for the metric and a scalar field, on the field theory side one starts by giving an ansatz for the beta function describing the scale dependence of the coupling. The model is based on relating the scale to the extra dimensional coordinate and the beta function to the gravity fields, thereby also determining the scalar field potential. We study three different forms of beta functions of increasing complexity and give semianalytic solutions describing first order or continuous transitions.
Renormalization group evolution of QCD composite light-cone operators, built from two and more quark and gluon fields, is responsible for the logarithmic scaling violations in diverse physical observables. We analyze spectra of anomalous dimensions of these operators at large conformal spins at weak and strong coupling with the emphasis on the emergence of a dual string picture. The multi-particle spectrum at weak coupling has a hidden symmetry due to integrability of the underlying dilatation operator which drives the evolution. In perturbative regime, we demonstrate the equivalence of the one-loop cusp anomaly to the disk partition function in two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory which admits a string representation. The strong coupling regime for anomalous dimensions is discussed within the two pictures addressed recently, -- minimal surfaces of open strings and rotating long closed strings in AdS background. In the latter case we find that the integrability implies the presence of extra degrees of freedom -- the string junctions. We demonstrate how the analysis of their equations of motion naturally agrees with the spectrum found at weak coupling.
We discuss the possibility of a class of gauge theories, in four Euclidean dimensions, to describe gravity at quantum level. The requirement is that, at low energies, these theories can be identified with gravity as a geometrodynamical theory. Specifically, we deal with de Sitter-type groups and show that a Riemann-Cartan first order gravity emerges. An analogy with quantum chromodynamics is also formulated. Under this analogy it is possible to associate a soft BRST breaking to a continuous deformation between both sectors of the theory, namely, ultraviolet and infrared. Moreover, instead of hadrons and glueballs, the physical observables are identified with the geometric properties of spacetime. Furthermore, Newton and cosmological constants can be determined from the dynamical content of the theory.
Pure gauge theories for de Sitter, anti de Sitter and orthogonal groups, in four-dimensional Euclidean spacetime, are studied. It is shown that, if the theory is asymptotically free and a dynamical mass is generated, then an effective geometry may be induced and a gravity theory emerges.