Instability of Baryonic Black Branes

2025/02/09 by Alex Buchel, Buchel, Alex · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2502.05971

openalex publication_date 2025/02/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Baryonic black branes describe the quantum critical phase of the conformal conifold gauge theory at strong coupling. This phase extends to zero temperature at a finite baryonic chemical potential, represented by extremal black branes with AdS₂× R³× T^1,1 throat in asymptotic AdS₅× T^1,1 geometry. We demonstrate here that this phase is dynamically unstable below some critical value of T_c/μ: the instability is represented by a diffusive mode in the hydrodynamic sound channel with a negative diffusion coefficient. We also identify a new (exotic) ordered phase of the conifold gauge theory: this phase originates at the same critical value of T_c/μ, but extends to arbitrary high temperatures, and is characterized by an expectation value of a dimension-2 operator, \cal O₂∝ T², in the limit \frac μT→ 0.

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• Holographic shear correlators at low temperatures, and quantum η/s
• Phase Transitions and Black Hole Stability in Gauged N = 8 Supergravity
• Near-extremal membranes in M-theory
• Quantum Corrections to η/s from JT Gravity

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