Conceptual Aspects of Gauge/Gravity Duality

Abstract

We give an introductory review of gauge/gravity duality, and associated ideas of holography, emphasising the conceptual aspects. The opening Sections gather the ingredients, viz. anti-de Sitter spacetime, conformal field theory and string theory, that we need for presenting, in Section 5, the central and original example: Maldacena's AdS/CFT correspondence. Sections 6 and 7 develop the ideas of this example, also in applications to condensed matter systems, QCD, and hydrodynamics. Sections 8 and 9 discuss the possible extensions of holographic ideas to de Sitter spacetime and to black holes. Section 10 discusses the bearing of gauge/gravity duality on two philosophical topics: the equivalence of physical theories, and the idea that spacetime, or some features of it, are emergent.

49 pages, invited review for Foundations of Physics

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• The Devil in the (Implicit) Details. On the AMPS Paradox and its Resolution
• The Empirical Under-determination Argument Against Scientific Realism for Dual Theories
• The multiple realizability of general relativity in quantum gravity
• The Invisibility of Diffeomorphisms
• Phenomenology of Strong Interactions -- Towards an Effective Theory for Low Energy QCD
• Theoretical Equivalence in Physics
• Holography as an Information Principle in Quantum Gravity
• Optical and Thermodynamic Properties of a Rotating Dyonic Black Hole Spacetime in $\mathcal{N}=2,U(1{)}^2$ gauged supergravity
• Out of Nowhere: Duality
• Holographic Strange Metals for Philosophers and Physicists