Transport properties of holographic defects

Abstract

We study the charge transport properties of fields confined to a (2+1)-dimensional defect coupled to (3+1)-dimensional super-Yang-Mills at large-Nc and strong coupling, using AdS/CFT techniques applied to linear response theory. The dual system is described by Nf probe D5- or D7-branes in the gravitational background of Nc black D3-branes. Surprisingly, the transport properties of both defect CFT's are essentially identical — even though the D7-brane construction breaks all supersymmetries. We find that the system possesses a conduction threshold given by the wave-number of the perturbation and that the charge transport arises from a quasiparticle spectrum which is consistent with an intuitive picture where the defect acquires a finite width. We also examine finite-λ modifications arising from higher derivative interactions in the probe brane action.