Holographic spectral functions with momentum relaxation

Abstract

We study (fermionic) spectral functions in two holographic models, the Gubser-Rocha-linear axion model and the linear axion model, where translational symmetry is broken by axion fields linear to the boundary coordinates (${\ensuremath{\psi}}_{I}=\ensuremath{\beta}{\ensuremath{\delta}}_{Ii}{x}^{i}$). Here, $\ensuremath{\beta}$ corresponds to the strength of momentum relaxation. The spectral function is computed by the fermionic Green's function of the bulk Dirac equation, where a fermion mass, $m$, and a dipole coupling, $p$, are introduced as input parameters. By classifying the shape of spectral functions, we construct complete phase diagrams in ($m$, $p$, $\ensuremath{\beta}$) space for both models. We find that two phase diagrams are similar even though their background geometries are different. This similarity might be due to temperature effect, since our analysis has been done at small but finite temperature ($T/\ensuremath{\mu}=0.1$). We also find that the effect of momentum relaxation on the (spectral function) phases of two models are similar even though the effect of momentum relaxation on the dc conductivities of two models are very different. We suspect that this is because holographic fermion does not backreact to geometry in our framework.