No Arabic abstract
We study a massive real scalar field that breaks translation symmetry dynamically. Higher-gradient terms favour modulated configurations and neither finite density nor temperature are needed. In the broken phase, the energy density depends on the spatial position and the linear fluctuations show phononic dispersion. We then study a related massless scalar model where the modulated vacua break also the field shift symmetry and give rise to an additional Nambu-Goldstone mode, the shifton. We discuss the independence of the shifton and the phonon and draw an analogy to rotons in superfluids. Proceeding from first-principles, we re-obtain and generalise some standard results for one-dimensional lattices. Eventually, we prove stability against geometric deformations extending existing analyses for elastic media to the higher-derivatives cases.
We study periodically driven scalar fields and the resulting geometries with global AdS asymptotics. These solutions describe the strongly coupled dynamics of dual finite-size quantum systems under a periodic driving which we interpret as Floquet condensates. They span a continuous two-parameter space that extends the linearized solutions on AdS. We map the regions of stability in the solution space. In a significant portion of the unstable subspace, two very different endpoints are reached depending upon the sign of the perturbation. Collapse into a black hole occurs for one sign. For the opposite sign instead one attains a regular solution with periodic modulation. We also construct quenches where the driving frequency and amplitude are continuously varied. Quasistatic quenches can interpolate between pure AdS and sourced solutions with time periodic vev. By suitably choosing the quasistatic path one can obtain boson stars dual to Floquet condensates at zero driving field. We characterize the adiabaticity of the quenching processes. Besides, we speculate on the possible connections of this framework with time crystals.
In the previous paper [arXiv:0911.0679], we showed that the Reissner-Nordstrom black hole in the 5-dimensional anti-de Sitter space coupled to the Maxwell theory with the Chern-Simons term is unstable when the Chern-Simons coupling is sufficiently large. In the dual conformal field theory, the instability suggests a spatially modulated phase transition. In this paper, we construct and analyze non-linear solutions which describe the end-point of this phase transition. In the limit where the Chern-Simons coupling is large, we find that the phase transition is of the second order with the mean field critical exponent. However, the dispersion relation with the Van Hove singularity enhances quantum corrections in the bulk, and we argue that this changes the order of the phase transition from the second to the first. We compute linear response functions in the non-linear solution and find an infinite off-diagonal DC conductivity in the new phase.
We present a string theory construction of a gravity dual of a spatially modulated phase. In our earlier work, we showed that the Chern-Simons term in the 5-dimensional Maxwell theory destabilizes the Reissner-Nordstrom black holes in anti-de Sitter space if the Chern-Simons coupling is sufficiently high. In this paper, we show that a similar instability is realized on the worldvolume of 8-branes in the Sakai-Sugimoto model in the quark-gluon plasma phase. We also construct and analyze a non-linear solution describing the end-point of the transition. Our result suggests a new spatially modulated phase in quark-gluon plasma when the baryon density is above 0.8 N_f fm^{-3} at temperature 150 MeV.
Applying recursive renormalization group transformations to a scalar field theory, we obtain an effective quantum gravity theory with an emergent extra dimension, described by a dual holographic Einstein-Klein-Gordon type action. Here, the dynamics of both the dual order-parameter field and the metric tensor field originate from density-density and energy-momentum tensor-tensor effective interactions, respectively, in the recursive renormalization group transformation, performed approximately in the Gaussian level. This linear approximation in the recursive renormalization group transformation for the gravity sector gives rise to a linearized quantum Einstein-scalar theory along the $z-$directional emergent space. In the large $N$ limit, where $N$ is the flavor number of the original scalar fields, quantum fluctuations of both dynamical metric and dual scalar fields are suppressed, leading to a classical field theory of the Einstein-scalar type in $(D+1)$-spacetime dimensions. We show that this emergent background gravity describes the renormalization group flows of coupling functions in the UV quantum field theory through the extra dimension. More precisely, the IR boundary conditions of the gravity equations correspond to the renormalization group $beta$-functions of the quantum field theory, where the infinitesimal distance in the extra-dimensional space is identified with an energy scale for the renormalization group transformation. Finally, we also show that this dual holographic formulation describes quantum entanglement in a geometrical way, encoding the transfer of quantum entanglement from quantum matter to classical gravity in the large $N$ limit. We claim that this entanglement transfer serves as a microscopic foundation for the emergent holographic duality description.
Real Clifford algebras for arbitrary number of space and time dimensions as well as their representations in terms of spinors are reviewed and discussed. The Clifford algebras are classified in terms of isomorphic matrix algebras of real, complex or quaternionic type. Spinors are defined as elements of minimal or quasi-minimal left ideals within the Clifford algebra and as representations of the pin and spin groups. Two types of Dirac adjoint spinors are introduced carefully. The relation between mathematical structures and applications to describe relativistic fermions is emphasized throughout.