Francesco Nitti

Thermal Transport and Drag Force in Improved Holographic QCD

We calculate the bulk viscosity, drag force and jet quenching parameter in Improved Holographic QCD. We find that the bulk viscosity rises near the phase transition but does not exceed the shear viscosity. The drag force shows the effects of asymptotic freedom both as a function of velocity and temperature. It indicates diffusion times of heavy quarks in rough agreement with data. The jet quenching parameter values computed via the light-like Wilson loop are in the lower range suggested by data.

Holography and thermodynamics of 5D dilaton-gravity

The asymptotically-logarithmically-AdS black-hole solutions of 5D dilaton gravity with a monotonic dilaton potential are analyzed in detail. Such theories are holographically very close to pure Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. The existence and uniqueness of black-hole solutions is shown. It is also shown that a Hawking-Page transition exists at finite temperature if and only if the potential corresponds to a confining theory. The physics of the transition matches in detail with that of deconfinement of the Yang-Mills theory. The high-temperature phase asymptotes to a free gluon gas at high temperature matching the expected behavior from asymptotic freedom. The thermal gluon condensate is calculated and shown to be crucial for the existence of a non-trivial deconfining transition. The condensate of the topological charge is shown to vanish in the deconfined phase.

Improved holographic Yang–Mills at finite temperature: comparison with data

Abstract The semi-phenomenological improved holographic model for QCD is confronted with data of the pure glue, large- N c gauge theory. After fitting two phenomenological parameters in the potential, the model can reproduce in detail all thermodynamic functions at finite temperature. It also reproduces in detail all known spin-0 and spin-2 glueball observables at zero temperature and predicts the rest of the 0 + + and 2 + + towers. A similar two parameter fit in the CP-odd sector postdicts the correct second 0 + − glueball mass, and predicts the rest of the 0 + − tower.

Improved Holographic QCD

We provide a review to holographic models based on Einstein-dilaton gravity with a potential in five dimensions. Such theories, for a judicious choice of potential are very close to the physics of large-N YM theory both at zero and finite temperature. The zero temperature glueball spectra as well as their finite temperature thermodynamic functions compare well with lattice data. The model can be used to calculate transport coefficients, like bulk viscosity, the drag force and jet quenching parameters, relevant for the physics of the Quark–Gluon Plasma.

Langevin diffusion of heavy quarks in non-conformal holographic backgrounds

The Langevin diffusion process of a relativistic heavy quark in a non-conformal holographic setup is analyzed. The bulk geometry is a general, five-dimensional asymptotically AdS black hole. The heavy quark is described by a trailing string attached to a flavor brane, moving at constant velocity. From the equations describing linearized fluctuations of the string world-sheet, the correlation functions defining a generalized Langevin process are constructed via the AdS/CFT prescription. In the local limit, analytic expressions for the Langevin diffusion and friction coefficients are obtained in terms of the bulk string metric. Modified Einstein relations between these quantities are also derived. The spectral densities associated to the Langevin correlators are analyzed, and simple analytic expressions are obtained in the small and large frequency limits. Finally, a numerical analysis of the jet-quenching parameter, and a comparison to RHIC phenomenology are performed in the case of Improved Holographic QCD. It is shown that the jet-quenching parameter is not enough to describe energy loss of very energetic charm quarks and the full Langevin correlators are needed.

The Chern-Simons diffusion rate in improved holographic QCD

A bstractIn (3 + 1)-dimensional SU(Nc) Yang-Mills (YM) theory, the Chern-Simons diffusion rate, ΓCS, is determined by the zero-momentum, zero-frequency limit of the retarded two-point function of the CP-odd operator tr [F ∧ F ], with F the YM field strength. The Chern-Simons diffusion rate is a crucial ingredient for many CP-odd phenomena, including the chiral magnetic effect in the quark-gluon plasma. We compute ΓCS in the high-temperature, deconfined phase of Improved Holographic QCD, a refined holographic model for large-Nc YM theory. Our result for ΓCS/(sT ), where s is entropy density and T is temperature, varies slowly at high T and increases monotonically as T approaches the transition temperature from above. We also study the retarded two-point function of tr [F ∧ F ] with non-zero frequency and momentum. Our results suggest that the CP-odd phenomena that may potentially occur in heavy ion collisions could be controlled by an excitation with energy on the order of the lightest axial glueball mass.

Exotic RG Flows from Holography

Holographic RG flows are studied in an Einstein-dilaton theory with a general potential. The superpotential formalism is utilized in order to characterize and classify all solutions that are associated with asymptotically AdS space-times. Such solutions correspond to holographic RG flows and are characterized by their holographic β-functions. Novel solutions are found that have exotic properties from a RG point-of view. Some have β-functions that are defined patch-wise and lead to flows where the β-function changes sign without the flow stopping. Others describe flows that end in non-neighboring extrema in field space. Finally others describe regular flows between two minima of the potential and correspond holographically to flows driven by the VEV of an irrelevant operator in the UV CFT.

Dressed spectral densities for heavy quark diffusion in holographic plasmas

We analyze the large frequency behavior of the spectral densities that govern the generalized Langevin diffusion process for a heavy quark in the context of the gauge/gravity duality. The bare Langevin correlators obtained from the trailing string solution have a singular short-distance behavior. We argue that the proper dressed spectral functions are obtained by subtracting the zero-temperature correlators. The dressed spectral functions have a sufficiently fast fall-off at large frequency so that the Langevin process is well defined and the dispersion relations are satisfied. We identify the cases in which the subtraction does not modify the associated low-frequency transport coefficients. These include conformal theories and the non-conformal, non-confining models. We provide several analytic and numerical examples in conformal and non-conformal holographic backgrounds.

Polarized solutions and Fermi surfaces in holographic Bose-Fermi systems

A bstractWe use holography to study the ground state of a system with interacting bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom at finite density. The gravitational model consists of Einstein-Maxwell gravity coupled to a perfect fluid of charged fermions and to a charged scalar field which interact through a current-current interaction. When the scalar field is non-trivial, in addition to compact electron stars, the screening of the fermion electric charge by the scalar condensate allows the formation of solutions where the fermion fluid is made of antiparticles, as well as solutions with coexisting, separated regions of particle-like and antiparticle-like fermion fluids. We show that, when the latter solutions exist, they are thermodynamically favored. By computing the two-point Green function of the boundary fermionic operator we show that, in addition to the charged scalar condensate, the dual field theory state exhibits electron-like and/or hole-like Fermi surfaces. Compared to fluid-only solutions, the presence of the scalar condensate destroys the Fermi surfaces with lowest Fermi momenta. We interpret this as a signal of the onset of superconductivity.

On the gluonic operator effective potential in holographic Yang-Mills theory

A bstractThe holographic formalism is applied to the calculation of the effective potential for the scalar glueball operator. Three different versions of this operator are defined, and for each we compute the associated effective potential and discuss its properties and scheme ambiguities. For one of them, the trace of the stress tensor, the potential is fixed by scale covariance and the conformal anomaly. Contact is made to earlier attempts to guess this effective potential from the conformal anomaly. We apply our results to the Improved Holographic QCD model calculating the glueball condensate.