AdS Bulk Research Articles

Unitarity and positivity constraints for CFT at large central charge

We consider the four-point correlator of the stress tensor multiplet in mathcal{N}=4 SYM in the limit of large central charge c ∼ N2. For finite values of g2N single-trace intermediate operators arise at order 1/c and this leads to specific poles in the Mellin representation of the correlator. The sign of the residue at these poles is fixed by unitarity. We consider solutions consistent with crossing symmetry and this pole structure. We show that in a certain regime all solutions result in a negative contribution to the anomalous dimension of twist four operators. The reason behind this is a positivity property of Mack polynomials that leads to a positivity condition for the Mellin amplitude. This positivity condition can also be proven by assuming the correct Regge behaviour for the Mellin amplitude. For large g2N we recover a tower of solutions in one to one correspondence with local interactions in a effective field theory in the AdS bulk, with the appropriate suppression factors, and with definite overall signs. These signs agree with the signs that would follow from causality constraints on the effective field theory. The positivity constraints arising from CFT for the Mellin amplitude take a very similar form to the causality constraint for the forward limit of the S-matrix.

Holographic calculation of entanglement entropy in the presence of boundaries

When a spacetime has boundaries, the entangling surface does not have to be necessarily compact and it may have boundaries as well. Then there appear a new, boundary, contribution to the entanglement entropy due to the intersection of the entangling surface with the boundary of the spacetime. We study the boundary contribution to the logarithmic term in the entanglement entropy in dimensions $d=3$ and $d=4$ when the entangling surface is orthogonal to the boundary. In particular, we compute a boundary term in the entropy of ${\mathcal{N}}=4$ super-gauge multiplet at weak coupling. This result is compared with the holographic calculation of the entropy based on the Ryu-Takayanagi proposal adapted appropriately to the present situation. We find a complete agreement between these two calculations provided the boundary conditions imposed on the gauge multiplet preserve $1/2$ of the supersymmetry and the extension of the boundary into the AdS bulk is a minimal hypersurface.

Fermionic and bosonic mass deformations of N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 SYM and their bulk supergravity dual

We examine the AdS-CFT dual of arbitrary (non)supersymmetric fermionic mass deformations of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 SYM, and investigate how the backreaction of the RR and NS-NS two-form potentials dual to the fermion masses contribute to Coulomb-branch potential of D3 branes, which we interpret as the bulk boson mass matrix. Using representation theory and supergravity arguments we show that the fermion masses completely determine the trace of this matrix, and that on the other hand its traceless components have to be turned on as non-normalizable modes. Our result resolves the tension between the belief that the AdS bulk dual of the trace of the boson mass matrix (which is not a chiral operator) is a stringy excitation with dimension of order (g s N )1/4 and the existence of non-stringy supergravity flows describing theories where this trace is nonzero, by showing that the stringy mode does not parameterize the sum of the squares of the boson masses but rather its departure from the trace of the square of the fermion mass matrix. Hence, asymptotically-AdS flows can only describe holographically theories where the sums of the squares of the bosonic and fermionic masses are equal, which is consistent with the weakly-coupled result that only such theories can have a conformal UV fixed point.

Hologram of a pure state black hole

In this paper we extend the HKLL holographic smearing function method to reconstruct (quasi)local AdS bulk scalar observables in the background of a large AdS black hole formed by null shell collapse (a "pure state" black hole), from the dual CFT which is undergoing a sudden quench. In particular, we probe the near horizon and sub-horizon bulk locality. First we construct local bulk operators from the CFT in the leading semiclassical limit, $N\rightarrow\infty$. Then we look at effects due to the finiteness of $N$, where we propose a suitable coarse-graining prescription involving early and late time cut-offs to define semiclassical bulk observables which are approximately local; their departure from locality being non-perturbatively small in $N$. Our results have important implications on the black hole information problem.

Large-scale structure challenges dilaton gravity in a 5D brane scenario with AdS bulk

We study a theory of dilaton gravity in a five-dimensional brane scenario, with a non-minimal coupling of the dilaton to the matter content of the universe localized on the brane. The effective gravitational equations at the brane are derived in the Einstein frame in the covariant approach, addressing certain misconceptions in the literature. We then investigate whether the observed large-scale structure of the universe can exist on the brane in this dilaton gravity scenario with an exact anti de Sitter bulk, assuming that the matter energy–momentum tensor has the form of an inhomogeneous perfect fluid. The corresponding constraint on the spatial derivative of the matter energy density is derived, and subsequently quantified using the current limits resulting from searches for variation of the Newton's constant. By confronting it with the observational data from galaxy surveys, we show that up to scales of the order of 104 Mpc, the derived bound on the spatial derivative of the matter energy density does not allow for the existence of the large-scale structure as observed today. Thus, such a dilaton gravity brane scenario is ruled out.

A holographic model of heavy-light mesons

We construct a holographic model of heavy-light mesons by extending the AdS/QCD to incorporate the behavior of the heavy quark limit. In that limit, the QCD dynamics is governed by the light quark and the heavy quark simply plays the role of a static color source. The heavy quark spin symmetry can be treated as a global symmetry in the AdS bulk. As a consequence, the heavy-light mesons are mapped to "fermions" in the AdS theory. The light flavor chiral symmetry is naturally built in by this construction, and its breaking produces the splitting of the parity-doubled heavy-light meson states. The scaling dependences of physical quantities on the heavy quark mass in the heavy quark effective theory are reproduced. The mass spectra and decay constants of the B and D mesons can be well fit by suitable choices of model parameters. The couplings between the heavy-light mesons and the pions are also calculated. The holographic model may capture the essence of the long distance effects of QCD and can serve as a useful tool for studying the non-perturbative hadronic matrix elements involving heavy-light mesons.

Potential analysis in holographic Schwinger effect

We analyze electrostatic potentials in the holographic Schwinger effect. The potential barrier for the pair production is estimated by a static potential consisting of static mass energies, an electric potential from an external electric-field, and the Coulomb potential between a particle and an antiparticle. Given that the Coulomb potential is supposed to be evaluated by the minimal surface attaching on the conformal boundary as usual, the critical field, where the potential barrier vanishes, exhibits a deviation of 30% from the one obtained from the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action. We reconsider this issue by reexamining the Coulomb-potential part, which is evaluated by the classical action of a string solution attaching on a probe D3-brane sitting at an intermediate position in the bulk AdS. Then the resulting critical-field completely agrees with the DBI result. This agreement gives rise to a strong support for the holographic scenario. We also discuss the finite-temperature case and the temperature-dependent critical-field also agrees with the DBI result.

The fate of monsters in anti-de Sitter spacetime

Abstract Black hole entropy remains a deep puzzle: where does such enormous amount of entropy come from? Curiously, there exist gravitational configurations that possess even larger entropy than a black hole of the same mass, in fact, arbitrarily high entropy. These are the so-called monsters, which are problematic to the Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence paradigm since there is far insufficient degrees of freedom on the field theory side to account for the enormous entropy of monsters in AdS bulk. The physics of the bulk however may be considerably modified at semi-classical level due to the presence of branes. We show that this is especially so since monster spacetimes are unstable due to brane nucleation. As a consequence, it is not clear what the final fate of monsters is. We argue that in some cases there is no real threat from monsters since although they are solutions to Einstein’s Field Equations, they are very likely to be completely unstable when embedded in string theory, and thus probably are not solutions to the full quantum theory of gravity. Our analysis, while suggestive and supportive of the claim that such pathological objects are not allowed in the final theory, by itself does not rule out all monsters. We comment on various kin of monsters such as the “bag-of-gold” spacetime, and also discuss briefly the implications of our work to some puzzles related to black hole entropy.

Exact higher-spin symmetry in CFT: all correlators in unbroken Vasiliev theory

All correlation functions of conserved currents of the CFT that is dual to unbroken Vasiliev theory are found as invariants of higher-spin symmetry in the bulk of AdS. The conformal and higher-spin symmetry of the correlators as well as the conservation of currents are manifest, which also provides a direct link between the Maldacena-Zhiboedov result and higher-spin symmetries. Our method is in the spirit of AdS/CFT, though we never take any boundary limit or compute any bulk integrals. Boundary-to-bulk propagators are shown to exhibit an algebraic structure, living at the boundary of SpH(4), semidirect product of Sp(4) and the Heisenberg group. N-point correlation function is given by a product of N elements.

Critical condition in gravitational shock wave collision and heavy ion collisions

In this paper, we derived a critical condition for matter equilibration in heavy ion collisions using a holographic approach. A gravitational shock waves with infinite transverse extension is used to model infinite nucleus. We constructed the trapped surface in the collision of two asymmetric planar shock waves with sources at different depth in the bulk AdS and formulated a critical condition for matter equilibration in collision of "nucleus" in the dual gauge theory. We found the critical condition is insensitive to the depth of the source closer to the AdS boundary. To understand the origin of the critical condition, we computed the Next to Leading Order stress tensor in the boundary field theory due to the interaction of the nucleus and found the critical condition corresponds to the breaking down of the perturbative expansion. We indeed expect non-perturbative effects be needed to describe black hole formation.

Positive tension 3-branes in an AdS 5 bulk

In this work, we review and extend the so-called consistency conditions for the existence of a braneworld scenario in arbitrary dimensions in the Brans-Dicke (BD) gravitational theory. After that, we consider the particular case of a five-dimensional scenario which seems to have phenomenological interesting implications. We show that, in the BD framework, it is possible to achieve necessary conditions pointing to the possibility of accommodating branes with positive tensions in an AdS bulk by the presence of the additional BD scalar field, avoiding in this way the necessity of including unstable objects in the compactification scheme. Furthermore, in the context of time variable brane tension, it is shown that the brane tension may change its sign, following the bulk cosmological constant sign.

Probe branes, time-dependent couplings and thermalization in AdS/CFT

We present holographic descriptions of thermalization in conformal field theories using probe D-branes in AdS × S space-times. We find that the induced metrics on Dp-brane worldvolumes which are rotating in an internal sphere direction have horizons with characteristic Hawking temperatures even if there is no black hole in the bulk AdS. The AdS/CFT correspondence applied to such systems indeed reveals thermal properties such as Brownian motions and AC conductivities in the dual conformal field theories. We also use this framework to holographically analyze time-dependent systems undergoing a quantum quench, where parameters in quantum field theories, such as a mass or a coupling constant, are suddenly changed. We confirm that this leads to thermal behavior by demonstrating the formation of apparent horizons in the induced metric after a certain time.

Boost-invariant early time dynamics from AdS/CFT

Boost-invariant dynamics of a strongly-coupled conformal plasma is studied in the regime of early proper-time using the AdS/CFT correspondence. It is shown, in contrast with the late-time expansion, that a scaling solution does not exist. The boundary dynamics in this regime depends on initial conditions encoded in the bulk behavior of a Fefferman-Graham metric coefficient at initial proper-time. The relation between the early-time expansion of the energy density and initial conditions in the bulk of AdS is provided. As a general result it is proven that a singularity of some metric coefficient in Fefferman-Graham frame exists at all times. Requiring that this singularity at τ = 0 is a mere coordinate singularity without the curvature blow-up gives constraints on the possible boundary dynamics. Using a simple Pade resummation for solutions satisfying the regularity constraint, the features of a transition to local equilibrium, and thus to the hydrodynamical late-time regime, have been observed. The impact of this study on the problem of thermalization is discussed.

Higher derivative gravity, causality and positivity of energy in a UV complete QFT

In this note we discuss the relation between the constraints imposed by causality in the bulk of AdS and the condition of positivity of the energy measured in ideal calorimeters in a collider experiment in the dual CFT. We first extend the analysis in the literature and recover all bounds imposed by causality of the boundary theory in the bulk dynamics for all polarizations of the graviton and the gauge boson field. These results translate to specific bounds for the ratio of central charges a c in the dual CFT, already found by analyzing the energy one point function. Then, we generalize this discussion and we study shock wave backgrounds in which we make manifest the relation between causality in the bulk and the three point function in the dual field theory. We remark that particular care has to be given to the exponentiation procedure of the three point function when solving the classical equations of motion in the higher gravity theory, as it is not clear that every theory will present causality problems. Finally, we present a field theoretic argument explaining the positivity of energy condition in any UV complete QFT.

Linearized hydrodynamics from probe-sources in the gauge–string duality

We study the response of an infinite, asymptotically static N = 4 plasma to a generic localized source in the probe approximation. At large distances, the energy–momentum tensor of the plasma includes a term which satisfies the constitutive relations of linearized hydrodynamics, but it can also include a non-hydrodynamical term which contributes at the same order as viscous corrections, or even at leading order in some cases. The conditions for the appearance of a laminar wake far behind the source and its relevance for phenomenological models used to explain di-hadron correlations are discussed. We also consider the energy–momentum tensor near the source, where the hydrodynamical approximation can be expected to break down. Our analysis encompasses a wide range of sources which are localized in the bulk of AdS, including trailing strings, mesonic and baryonic configurations of strings, and point particles.

Deep inelastic scattering from gauge string duality in D3-D7 brane model

We calculate deep inelastic structure functions for mesons in the D3-D7 brane model, that incorporates flavour to the AdS/CFT correspondence. We consider two different prescriptions for the hadronic current dual: a gauge field in the AdS bulk and a gauge field on the D7 brane. We also calculate elastic form factors in both cases. We compare our results with other holographic models.

Generalized curvature and Ricci tensors for a higher spin potential and the trace anomaly in external higher spin fields in [formula omitted] space

The curvature of a higher spin potential as constructed in a previous article of the same authors [R. Manvelyan, W. Rühl, The generalized curvature and Christoffel symbols for a higher spin potential in AdS d + 1 space, arXiv: 0705.3528 [hep-th]] is applied to the analysis of the linearized trace anomaly obtained from the quadratic part of the effective action for a conformally coupled scalar with linearized interaction with the external higher spin fields [R. Manvelyan, W. Rühl, The structure of the trace anomaly of higher spin conformal currents in the bulk of AdS 4 , Nucl. Phys. B 751 (2006) 285, hep-th/0602067]. The spin is restricted to four to profit from technical simplifications but without reducing the problem in principle. The issue includes the calculation of all Ricci tensors as multiple traces of the curvature, the derivation of all primary and secondary Bianchi identities, expressing all Ricci tensors as differential operators applied to the Fronsdal term, calculating the Weyl variation of these, and showing finally that Weyl variations of integrals over contracted squares of Ricci tensors can be used to eliminate the anomaly completely. This peculiarity is discussed in detail. As tools we use the formalism of bisymmetric tensor fields whose space is equipped with a local bilinear invariant form, the *-form.

Confining k-string tensions with D-branes in super Yang–Mills theories

Abstract We discuss confining k strings in four-dimensional gauge theories using D5 branes in AdS 5 × S 5 , and D3 branes in Klebanov–Strassler and Maldacena–Nunez backgrounds. We present two results: The first that confining k string tensions in N = 4 can be calculated using D5 branes in AdS 5 × S 5 with a cut-off in the bulk AdS . Using an embedding of R 2 times S 4 ⊂ S 5 , we show that the D5 brane replicates a string of rank k in the antisymmetric representation. The second result shows that the S-dual calculation to hep-th/0111078 reproduces the action in the Klebanov–Strassler and Maldacena–Nunez backgrounds exactly, while providing a more natural manifestation of the string charge k .

A Gravity Dual of RHIC Collisions

In the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence we discuss the gravity dual of a heavy-ion-like collision in a variant of ${\cal N}=4$ SYM. We provide a gravity dual picture of the entire process using a model where the scattering process creates initially a holographic shower in bulk AdS. The subsequent gravitational fall leads to a moving black hole that is gravity dual to the expanding and cooling heavy-ion fireball. The front of the fireball cools at the rate of $1/\tau$, while the core cools as $1/\sqrt{\tau}$ from a cosmological-like argument. The cooling is faster than Bjorken cooling. The fireball freezes when the dual black hole background is replaced by a confining background through the Hawking-Page transition.

Higher loop Bethe ansatz for open spin-chains in AdS/CFT

We propose a perturbative asymptotic Bethe ansatz (PABA) for open spin-chain systems whose Hamiltonians are given by matrices of anomalous dimension for composite operators, and apply it to two types of composite operators related to two different brane configurations. One is an AdS_4 \times S^2-brane in the bulk AdS_5 \times S^5 which gives rise to a defect conformal field theory (dCFT) in the dual field theory, and the other is a giant graviton system with an open string excitation. In both cases, excitations on open strings attaching to D-branes (a D5-brane for the dCFT case, and a spherical D3-brane for the giant graviton case) can be represented by magnon states in the spin-chains with appropriate boundary conditions, in which informations of the D-branes are encoded. We concentrate on single-magnon problems, and explain how to calculate boundary S-matrices via the PABA technique. We also discuss the energy spectrum in the BMN limit.