No Arabic abstract
We study the dynamics of a strongly-coupled quantum field theory in a cosmological spacetime using the holographic AdS/CFT correspondence. Specifically we consider a confining gauge theory in an expanding FRW universe and track the evolution of the stress-energy tensor during a period of expansion, varying the initial temperature as well as the rate and amplitude of the expansion. At strong coupling, particle production is inseparable from entropy production. As a result, we find significant qualitative differences from the weak coupling results: at strong coupling the system rapidly loses memory of its initial state as the amplitude is increased. Furthermore, in the regime where the Hubble parameter is parametrically smaller than the initial temperature, the dynamics is well modelled as a plasma evolving hydrodynamically towards equilibrium.
An extension of Horava-Lifshitz gravity was recently proposed in order to address the pathological behavior of the scalar mode all previo
A different reason for the apparent weakness of the gravitational interaction is advanced, and its consequences for Hawking evaporation of a Schwarzschild black hole are investigated. Proceeding from some fundamental thermodynamic observations, a simple analytical formulation predicts that evaporating black holes will undergo a type of phase transition resulting in variously long-lived quantized objects of reasonable sizes, with normal thermodynamic properties and inherent duality characteristics. Speculations on the implications for particle physics are explored, and predictions for possible experimental confirmation of the scenario at LHC are made.
In large-$N_c$ conformal field theories with classical holographic duals, inverse coupling constant corrections are obtained by considering higher-derivative terms in the corresponding gravity theory. In this work, we use type IIB supergravity and bottom-up Gauss-Bonnet gravity to study the dynamics of boost-invariant Bjorken hydrodynamics at finite coupling. We analyze the time-dependent decay properties of non-local observables (scalar two-point functions and Wilson loops) probing the different models of Bjorken flow and show that they can be expressed generically in terms of a few field theory parameters. In addition, our computations provide an analytically quantifiable probe of the coupling-dependent validity of hydrodynamics at early times in a simple model of heavy-ion collisions, which is an observable closely analogous to the hydrodynamization time of a quark-gluon plasma. We find that to third order in the hydrodynamic expansion, the convergence of hydrodynamics is improved and that generically, as expected from field theory considerations and recent holographic results, the applicability of hydrodynamics is delayed as the field theory coupling decreases.
Wolfgang Kummer was a pioneer of two-dimensional gravity and a strong advocate of the first order formulation in terms of Cartan variables. In the present work we apply Wolfgang Kummers philosophy, the `Vienna School approach, to a specific three-dimensional model of gravity, cosmological topologically massive gravity at the chiral point. Exploiting a new Chern-Simons representation we perform a canonical analysis. The dimension of the physical phase space is two per point, and thus the theory exhibits a local physical degree of freedom, the topologically massive graviton.
We analyze the singularities of the two-point function in a conformal field theory at finite temperature. In a free theory, the only singularity is along the boundary light cone. In the holographic limit, a new class of singularities emerges since two boundary points can be connected by a nontrivial null geodesic in the bulk, encircling the photon sphere of the black hole. We show that these new singularities are resolved by tidal effects due to the black hole curvature, by solving the string worldsheet theory in the Penrose limit. Singularities in the asymptotically flat black hole geometry are also discussed.