Thursday, June 28, 2012

1206.3581 (Sera Cremonini et al.)

On the Temperature Dependence of the Shear Viscosity and Holography    [PDF]

Sera Cremonini, Umut Gursoy, Phillip Szepietowski
We examine the structure of the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio eta/s in holographic theories of gravity coupled to a scalar field, in the presence of higher derivative corrections. Thanks to a non-trivial scalar field profile, eta/s in this setup generically runs as a function of temperature. In particular, its temperature behavior is dictated by the shape of the scalar potential and of the scalar couplings to the higher derivative terms. We consider a number of dilatonic setups, but focus mostly on phenomenological models that are QCD-like. We determine the geometric conditions needed to identify local and global minima for eta/s as a function of temperature, which translate to restrictions on the signs and ranges of the higher derivative couplings. Finally, such restrictions lead to an holographic argument for the existence of a global minimum for eta/s in these models, at or above the deconfinement transition.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.3581

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