We give simple examples of weakly coupled or free quantum mechanical systems that exhibit scale invariance with an anomalous dimension for a conserved current. In these models scaling as an exact symmetry only emerges in a large N limit, but it remains as an approximate symmetry even at finite N.
We show that many results about holographic conductivities in geometries with hyperscaling violating scaling can be reproduced from simple scaling laws in the dual field theory. We show that the electro-magnetic response of probe branes in these syst
ems require at least one additional scaling parameter Phi beyond the usual dynamical exponent z and hyperscaling violating exponent theta, as also pointed out in earlier work. We show that the scaling exponents can be chosen in such a way that the temperature dependence of DC conductivity and Hall angle in strange metals can be reproduced.
We describe the asymptotic behavior of minimal area submanifolds in product spacetimes of an asymptotically hyperbolic space times a compact internal manifold. In particular, we find that unlike the case of a minimal area submanifold just in an asymp
totically hyperbolic space, the internal part of the boundary submanifold is constrained to be itself a minimal area submanifold. For applications to holography, this tells us what are the allowed flavor branes that can be added to a holographic field theory. We also give a compact geometric expression for the spectrum of operator dimensions associated with the slipping modes of the submanifold in the internal space. We illustrate our results with several examples, including some that havent appeared in the literature before.
We argue that generic non-relativistic quantum field theories have a holographic description in terms of Horava gravity. We construct explicit examples of this duality embedded in string theory by starting with relativistic dual pairs and taking a non-relativistic scaling limit.
We extend the ideas of using AdS/CFT to calculate energy loss of extended defects in strongly coupled systems to general holographic metrics. We find the equations of motion governing uniformly moving defects of various dimension and determine the co
rresponding energy loss rates in terms of the metric coefficients. We apply our formulae to the specific examples of both bulk geometries created by general Dp-branes, as well as to holographic superfluids. For the Dp-branes, we find that the energy loss of our defect, in addition to the expected quadratic dependence on velocity, depends on velocity only via an effective blueshifted temperature - despite the existence of a microscopic length scale in the theory. We also find, for a certain value of p and dimension of the defect, that the energy loss has no dependence on temperature or velocity other than the aforementioned quadratic dependence on velocity. For the superfluid example, we find agreement with previous results on the existence of a cutoff velocity, below which the probe experiences no drag force. For both examples we can easily extend the equations of motion and energy loss to defects of larger dimension.
We present an infinite class of 2+1 dimensional field theories which, after coupling to semi-holographic fermions, exhibit strange metallic behavior in a suitable large $N$ limit. These theories describe lattices of hypermultiplet defects interacting
with parity-preserving supersymmetric Chern-Simons theories with $U(N) times U(N)$ gauge groups at levels $pm k$. They have dual gravitational descriptions in terms of lattices of probe M2 branes in $AdS_4 times S^7/Z_k$ (for $N gg 1, N gg k^5$) or probe D2 branes in $AdS_4 times CP^3$ (for $N gg k gg 1, N ll k^5$). We discuss several challenges one faces in maintaining the success of these models at finite $N$, including backreaction of the probes in the gravity solutions and radiative corrections in the weakly coupled field theory limit.
