Showing papers by "Ayan Mukhopadhyay published in 2016"

Semi-holography for heavy ion collisions: self-consistency and first numerical tests

Abstract: We present an extended version of a recently proposed semi-holographic model for heavy-ion collisions, which includes self-consistent couplings between the Yang-Mills fields of the Color Glass Condensate framework and an infrared AdS/CFT sector, such as to guarantee the existence of a conserved energy-momentum tensor for the combined system that is local in space and time, which we also construct explicitly. Moreover, we include a coupling of the topological charge density in the glasma to the same of the holographic infrared CFT. The semi-holographic approach makes it possible to combine CGC initial conditions and weak-coupling glasma field equations with a simultaneous evolution of a strongly coupled infrared sector describing the soft gluons radiated by hard partons. As a first numerical test of the semi-holographic model we study the dynamics of fluctuating homogeneous color-spin-locked Yang-Mills fields when coupled to a homogeneous and isotropic energy-momentum tensor of the holographic IR-CFT, and we find rapid convergence of the iterative numerical procedure suggested earlier.

Holography as a highly efficient renormalization group flow. I. Rephrasing gravity

Abstract: We investigate how the holographic correspondence can be reformulated as a generalisation of Wilsonian RG flow in a strongly interacting large $N$ quantum field theory. We firstly define a \textit{highly efficient RG flow} as one in which the Ward identities related to local conservation of energy, momentum and charges preserve the same form at each scale -- to achieve this it is necessary to redefine the background metric and external sources at each scale as functionals of the effective single trace operators. These redefinitions also absorb the contributions of the multi-trace operators to these effective Ward identities. Thus the background metric and external sources become effectively dynamical reproducing the dual classical gravity equations in one higher dimension. Here, we focus on reconstructing the pure gravity sector as a highly efficient RG flow of the energy-momentum tensor operator, leaving the explicit constructive field theory approach for generating such RG flows to the second part of the work. We show that special symmetries of the highly efficient RG flows carry information through which we can decode the gauge fixing of bulk diffeomorphisms in the corresponding gravity equations. We also show that the highly efficient RG flow which reproduces a given classical gravity theory in a given gauge is \textit{unique} provided the endpoint can be transformed to a non-relativistic fixed point with a finite number of parameters under a universal rescaling. The results obtained here are used in the second part of this work, where we do an explicit field-theoretic construction of the RG flow, and obtain the dual classical gravity theory.

Time-dependence of the holographic spectral function: Diverse routes to thermalisation

Abstract: We develop a new method for computing the holographic retarded propagator in generic (non-)equilibrium states using the state/geometry map. We check that our method reproduces the thermal spectral function given by the Son-Starinets prescription. The time-dependence of the spectral function of a relevant scalar operator is studied in a class of non-equilibrium states. The latter are represented by AdS-Vaidya geometries with an arbitrary parameter characterising the timescale for the dual state to transit from an initial thermal equilibrium to another due to a homogeneous quench. For long quench duration, the spectral function indeed follows the thermal form at the instantaneous effective temperature adiabatically, although with a slight initial time delay and a bit premature thermalisation. At shorter quench durations, several new non-adiabatic features appear: (i) time-dependence of the spectral function is seen much before than that in the effective temperature (advanced time-dependence), (ii) a big transfer of spectral weight to frequencies greater than the initial temperature occurs at an intermediate time (kink formation) and (iii) new peaks with decreasing amplitudes but in greater numbers appear even after the effective temperature has stabilised (persistent oscillations). We find four broad routes to thermalisation for lower values of spatial momenta. At higher values of spatial momenta, kink formations and persistent oscillations are suppressed, and thermalisation time decreases. The general thermalisation pattern is globally top-down, but a closer look reveals complexities.

Time-dependence of the holographic spectral function: Diverse routes to thermalisation

Abstract: We develop a new method for computing the holographic retarded propagator in generic (non-)equilibrium states using the state/geometry map. We check that our method reproduces the thermal spectral function given by the Son-Starinets prescription. The time-dependence of the spectral function of a relevant scalar operator is studied in a class of non-equilibrium states. The latter are represented by AdS-Vaidya geometries with an arbitrary parameter characterising the timescale for the dual state to transit from an initial thermal equilibrium to another due to a homogeneous quench. For long quench duration, the spectral function indeed follows the thermal form at the instantaneous effective temperature adiabatically, although with a slight initial time delay and a bit premature thermalisation. At shorter quench durations, several new non-adiabatic features appear: (i) time-dependence of the spectral function is seen much before than that in the effective temperature (advanced time-dependence), (ii) a big transfer of spectral weight to frequencies greater than the initial temperature occurs at an intermediate time (kink formation) and (iii) new peaks with decreasing amplitudes but in greater numbers appear even after the effective temperature has stabilised (persistent oscillations). We find four broad routes to thermalisation for lower values of spatial momenta. At higher values of spatial momenta, kink formations and persistent oscillations are suppressed, and thermalisation time decreases. The general thermalisation pattern is globally top-down, but a closer look reveals complexities.

Holography as a highly efficient renormalization group flow. II. An explicit construction

Abstract: We complete the reformulation of the holographic correspondence as a highly efficient renormalization group (RG) flow that can also determine the UV data in the field theory in the strong-coupling and large-$N$ limit. We introduce a special way to define operators at any given scale in terms of appropriate coarse-grained collective variables, without requiring the use of the elementary fields. The Wilsonian construction is generalized by promoting the cutoff to a functional of these collective variables. We impose three criteria to determine the coarse-graining. The first criterion is that the effective Ward identities for local conservation of energy, momentum, etc. should preserve their standard forms, but in new scale-dependent background metric and sources which are functionals of the effective single-trace operators. The second criterion is that the scale-evolution equations of the operators in the actual background metric should be state-independent, implying that the collective variables should not explicitly appear in them. The final required criterion is that the end point of the scale-evolution of the RG flow can be transformed to a fixed point corresponding to familiar nonrelativistic equations with a finite number of parameters, such as incompressible nonrelativistic Navier-Stokes, under a certain universal rescaling of the scale and of the time coordinate. Using previous work, we explicitly show that in the hydrodynamic limit each such highly efficient RG flow reproduces a unique classical gravity theory with precise UV data that satisfy our IR criterion and also lead to regular horizons in the dual geometries. We obtain the explicit coarse-graining which reproduces Einstein's equations. In a simple example, we are also able to construct a low-energy effective action and compute the beta function. Finally, we show how our construction can be interpolated with the traditional Wilsonian RG flow at a suitable scale and can be used to develop new nonperturbative frameworks for QCD-like theories.

Understanding the holographic principle via RG flow

Abstract: This is a review of some recent works which demonstrate how the classical equations of gravity in AdS themselves hold the key to understand their holographic origin in the form of a strongly coupled large N QFT whose algebra of local operators can be generated by a few (single-trace) elements. I discuss how this can be realized by reformulating Einstein’s equations in AdS in the form of a nonperturbative RG flow that further leads to a new approach toward constructing strongly interacting QFTs. In particular, the RG flow can self-determine the UV data that are otherwise obtained by solving classical gravity equations and demanding that the solutions do not have naked singularities. For a concrete demonstration, I focus on the hydrodynamic limit in which case this RG flow connects the AdS/CFT correspondence with the membrane paradigm, and also reproduces the known values of the dual QFT transport coefficients.

Understanding the holographic principle via RG flow

Abstract: This is a review of some recent works which demonstrate how the classical equations of gravity in AdS themselves hold the key to understanding their holographic origin in the form of a strongly coupled large $N$ QFT whose algebra of local operators can be generated by a few (single-trace) elements. I discuss how this can be realised by reformulating Einstein's equations in AdS in the form of a non-perturbative RG flow that further leads to a new approach towards constructing strongly interacting QFTs. In particular, the RG flow can self-determine the UV data that are otherwise obtained by solving classical gravity equations and demanding that the solutions do not have naked singularities. For a concrete demonstration, I focus on the hydrodynamic limit in which case this RG flow connects the AdS/CFT correspondence with the membrane paradigm, and also reproduces the known values of the dual QFT transport coefficients.

Semiholography for heavy ion collisions

Abstract: The formation of QGP in heavy ion collisions gives us a great opportunity for learning about nonperturbative dynamics of QCD. Semiholography provides a new consistent framework to combine perturbative and non-perturbative effects in a coherent way and can be applied to obtain an effective description for heavy ion collisions. In particular, it allows us to include nonperturbative effects in existing glasma effective theory and QCD kinetic theory for the weakly coupled saturated degrees of freedom liberated by the collisions in the initial stages in a consistent manner. We argue why the full framework should be able to confront experiments with only a few phenomenological parameters and present feasibility tests for the necessary numerical computations. Furthermore, we discuss that semiholography leads to a new description of collective flow in the form of a generalised non-Newtonian fluid. We discuss some open questions which we hope to answer in the near future.