A supersymmetric holographic dual of a fractional topological insulator

We construct a supersymmetric generalization of the holographic dual of a fractional topological insulator found in \cite{HoyosBadajoz:2010ac}. This is accomplished by introducing a nontrivial gauge field on the world volume of the probe D7 brane. The BPS equations are derived from the $\kappa$-symmetry transformation of the probe brane. The BPS equations are shown to reduce to two first oder nonlinear partial differential equations. Solutions of the BPS equations correspond to a probe brane configuration which preserves four of the thirty-two supersymmetries of the $AdS_5\times S^5$ background. Solutions of the BPS equations which correspond to a holographic fractional topological insulator are obtained numerically.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figure

A Unified Description of Translational Symmetry Breaking in Holography

We provide a complete and unified description of translational symmetry breaking in a simple holographic model. In particular, we focus on the distinction and the interplay between explicit and spontaneous breaking. We consider a class of holographic massive gravity models which allow to range continuously from one situation to the other. We study the collective degrees of freedom, the electric AC conductivity and the shear correlator in function of the explicit and spontaneous scales. We show the possibility of having a sound-to-diffusion crossover for the transverse phonons. Within our model, we verify the validity of the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation. Despite of strong evidence for the absence of any standard dislocation induced phase relaxation mechanism, we identify a novel relaxation scale controlled by the ratio between the explicit and spontaneous breaking scales. Finally, in the pseudo-spontaneous limit, we prove analytically the relation, which has been discussed in the literature, between this novel relaxation scale, the mass of the pseudo-phonons and the Goldstone diffusivity. Our numerical data confirms this analytic result.Comment: v2: 36 pages, 17 figures. Discussion improved, added a new section with the analytic proof of the universal relation for the phase relaxation, references adde

Longitudinal Sound and Diffusion in Holographic Massive Gravity

We consider a simple class of holographic massive gravity models for which the dual field theories break translational invariance spontaneously. We study, in detail, the longitudinal sector of the quasi-normal modes at zero charge density. We identify three hydrodynamic modes in this sector: a pair of sound modes and one diffusion mode. We numerically compute the dispersion relations of the hydrodynamic modes. The obtained speed and the attenuation of the sound modes are in agreement with the hydrodynamic predictions. On the contrary, we surprisingly find disagreement in the case of the diffusive mode; its diffusion constant extracted from the quasi-normal mode data does not agree with the expectations from hydrodynamics. We confirm our numerical results using analytic tools in the decoupling limit and we comment on some possible reasons behind the disagreement. Finally, we extend the analysis of the collective longitudinal modes beyond the hydrodynamic limit by displaying the dynamics of the higher quasi-normal modes at large frequencies and momenta.Comment: v2: improved discussion, added analytic computation in the decoupling limit, references adde

Fermionic Operator Mixing in Holographic p-wave Superfluids

We use gauge-gravity duality to compute spectral functions of fermionic operators in a strongly-coupled defect field theory in p-wave superfluid states. The field theory is (3+1)-dimensional N=4 supersymmetric SU(Nc) Yang-Mills theory, in the 't Hooft limit and with large coupling, coupled to two massless flavors of (2+1)-dimensional N=4 supersymmetric matter. We show that a sufficiently large chemical potential for a U(1) subgroup of the global SU(2) isospin symmetry triggers a phase transition to a p-wave superfluid state, and in that state we compute spectral functions for the fermionic superpartners of mesons valued in the adjoint of SU(2) isospin. In the spectral functions we see the breaking of rotational symmetry and the emergence of a Fermi surface comprised of isolated points as we cool the system through the superfluid phase transition. The dual gravitational description is two coincident probe D5-branes in AdS5 x S5 with non-trivial worldvolume SU(2) gauge fields. We extract spectral functions from solutions of the linearized equations of motion for the D5-branes' worldvolume fermions, which couple to one another through the worldvolume gauge field. We develop an efficient method to compute retarded Green's functions from a system of coupled bulk fermions. We also perform the holographic renormalization of free bulk fermions in any asymptotically Euclidean AdS space.Comment: 68 pages, 25 eps files in 9 figures; v2 minor corrections, added two references, version published in JHE

Hyperscaling-Violation on Probe D-Branes

For the field theories dual to D3/D7- and D3/D5-brane systems we find non-relativistic finite density fixed points exhibiting a violation of hyperscaling. This violation is measured by the critical exponent $\theta=1$ while the dynamical critical exponent is $z=2$. At zero temperature we compute the thermodynamic potentials, the speed of normal sound, and the speed of zero sound for both these massive D3/D(2n+1)-brane systems near their non-relativistic fixed points. Moreover, we determine the first correction to the free energy for small temperatures yielding the critical exponents $\alpha$ and $\nu$.Comment: v1: 22 pages, 1 figure; v2: 23 pages, references added, extended introductio

Black hole elasticity and gapped transverse phonons in holography

We study the elastic response of planar black hole (BH) solutions in a simple class of holographic models with broken translational invariance. We compute the transverse quasi-normal mode spectrum and the propagation speed of the lowest energy mode. We find that the speed of the lowest mode relates to the BH rigidity modulus as dictated by elasticity theory. This allows to identify these modes as transverse phonons---the pseudo Goldstone bosons of spontaneously broken translational invariance. In addition, we show that these modes have a mass gap controlled by an explicit source of the translational symmetry breaking. These results provide a new confirmation that the BHs in these models do exhibit solid properties that become more manifest at low temperatures. Also, by the AdS/CFT correspondence, this allows to extend the standard results from the effective field theory for solids to quantum-critical materials.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures; v3: minor revisions, matching JHEP published versio

Quasinormal modes of charged magnetic black branes & chiral magnetic transport

We compute quasinormal modes (QNMs) of the metric and gauge field perturbations about black branes electrically and magnetically charged in the Einstein-Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory. By the gauge/gravity correspondence, this theory is dual to a particular class of field theories with a chiral anomaly, in a thermal charged plasma state subjected to a constant external magnetic field, $B$. The QNMs are dual to the poles of the two-point functions of the energy-momentum and axial current operators, and they encode information about the dissipation and transport of charges in the plasma. Complementary to the gravity calculation, we work out the hydrodynamic description of the dual field theory in the presence of a chiral anomaly, and a constant external $B$. We find good agreement with the weak field hydrodynamics, which can extend beyond the weak $B$ regime into intermediate regimes. Furthermore, we provide results that can be tested against thermodynamics and hydrodynamics in the strong $B$ regime. We find QNMs exhibiting Landau level behavior, which become long-lived at large $B$ if the anomaly coefficient exceeds a critical magnitude. Chiral transport is analyzed beyond the hydrodynamic approximation for the five (formerly) hydrodynamic modes, including a chiral magnetic wave.Comment: 29 pages + appendix, 14 figures; v2: references added, published versio

Holographic Phonons

We present a class of holographic massive gravity models that realize a spontaneous breaking of translational symmetry - they exhibit transverse phonon modes whose speed relates to the elastic shear modulus according to elasticity theory. Massive gravity theories thus emerge as versatile and convenient theories to model generic types of translational symmetry breaking: explicit, spontaneous and a mixture of both. The nature of the breaking is encoded in the radial dependence of the graviton mass. As an application of the model, we compute the temperature dependence of the shear modulus and find that it features a glass-like melting transition.Comment: 5+3 pages, 6 figure