Overcoming obstacles in nonequilibrium holography

Abstract

We study universal spatial features of certain non-equilibrium steady states corresponding to flows of strongly correlated fluids over obstacles. This allows us to predict universal spatial features of far-from-equilibrium systems, which in certain interesting cases depend cleanly on the hydrodynamic transport coefficients of the underlying theory, such as $\eta /s$, the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio. In this work we give a purely field-theoretical definition of the spatial collective modes identified earlier and proceed to demonstrate their usefulness in a set of examples, drawing on hydrodynamic theory as well as holographic duality. We extend our earlier treatment by adding a finite chemical potential, which introduces a qualitatively new feature, namely damped oscillatory behavior in space. We find interesting transitions between oscillatory and damped regimes and we consider critical exponents associated with these. We explain in detail the numerical method and add a host of new examples, including fully analytical ones. Such a treatment is possible in the large-dimension limit of the bulk theory, as well as in three dimensions, where we also exhibit a fully analytic non-linear example that beautifully illustrates the original proposal of spatial universality. This allows us to explicitly demonstrate how an infinite tower of discrete modes condenses into a branch cut in the zero-temperature limit, converting exponential decay into a power law tail.

60 pages, 19 figures

References in corpus (17)

• Minkowski-space correlators in AdS/CFT correspondence: recipe and applications
• Mobility and Saturation Velocity in Graphene on SiO2
• Horizon formation and far-from-equilibrium isotropization in supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma
• Ohm's Law at strong coupling: S duality and the cyclotron resonance
• Momentum dissipation and effective theories of coherent and incoherent transport
• Universal far-from-equilibrium Dynamics of a Holographic Superconductor
• High and Low Dimensions in The Black Hole Negative Mode
• Short-lived modes from hydrodynamic dispersion relations
• AdS flowing black funnels: Stationary AdS black holes with non-Killing horizons and heat transport in the dual CFT
• Flowing Funnels: Heat sources for field theories and the AdS_3 dual of CFT_2 Hawking radiation
• Universal spatial structure of nonequilibrium steady states
• Non-linear, Finite Frequency Quantum Critical Transport from AdS/CFT
• Shock waves in strongly coupled plasmas
• Current fluctuations near to the 2D superconductor-insulator quantum critical point
• Absorption Lengths in the Holographic Plasma
• Holographic Charge Oscillations
• Graphene - a nearly perfect fluid

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Complexified quasinormal modes and the pole-skipping in a holographic system at finite chemical potential
• Rigorous bounds on transport from causality
• Hydrodynamics without boosts
• Steady States of Holographic Interfaces
• Holographic systems far from equilibrium: a review
• Nonequilibrium protection effect and spatial localization of noise-induced fluctuations: Quasi-one-dimensional driven lattice gas with partially penetrable obstacle