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Probe branes, time-dependent couplings and thermalization in AdS/CFT

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Abstract

We present holographic descriptions of thermalization in conformal field theories using probe D-branes in AdS × S space-times. We find that the induced metrics on Dp-brane worldvolumes which are rotating in an internal sphere direction have horizons with characteristic Hawking temperatures even if there is no black hole in the bulk AdS. The AdS/CFT correspondence applied to such systems indeed reveals thermal properties such as Brownian motions and AC conductivities in the dual conformal field theories. We also use this framework to holographically analyze time-dependent systems undergoing a quantum quench, where parameters in quantum field theories, such as a mass or a coupling constant, are suddenly changed. We confirm that this leads to thermal behavior by demonstrating the formation of apparent horizons in the induced metric after a certain time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU), University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8582, Japan

    Sumit R. Das & Tadashi Takayanagi

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40506, U.S.A.

    Sumit R. Das

  3. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Tatsuma Nishioka

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  1. Sumit R. Das
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Das, S.R., Nishioka, T. & Takayanagi, T. Probe branes, time-dependent couplings and thermalization in AdS/CFT. J. High Energ. Phys. 2010, 71 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2010)071

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