Current-driven tricritical point in large-$N_c$ gauge theory

Abstract

We discover a new tricritical point realized only in non-equilibrium steady states, using the AdS/CFT correspondence. Our system is a (3+1)-dimensional strongly-coupled large-$N_c$ gauge theory. The tricritical point is associated with a chiral symmetry breaking under the presence of an electric current and a magnetic field. The critical exponents agree with those of the Landau theory of equilibrium phase transitions. This suggests that the presence of a Landau-like phenomenological theory behind our non-equilibrium phase transitions.

9 pages, 7 figures; v2 references updated, typos corrected; v3 published vresion