Holography and the speed of sound at high temperatures

2009/05/31 by Paul M. Hohler, Mikhail A. Stephanov, Mikhail Stephanov
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Acoustics #Anomaly (physics) #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Class (philosophy) #Classical mechanics #Computer science #Conformal map #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Field (mathematics) #Geometry #Gravitation #Holography #Mathematical analysis #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Operator (biology) #Optics #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Scalar field #Sound (geography) #Speed of sound #Theoretical physics #hep-ph #hep-th #nucl-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.80.066002

published as Phys. Rev. D 80, 066002 (2009) · 4 pages, corrected typos

openalex publication_date 2009/09/03 · arxiv created 2009/09/15 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We show that in a general class of strongly interacting theories at high temperatures the speed of sound approaches the conformal value c_s²=1/3 universally from below. This class includes theories holographically dual to a theory of gravity coupled to a single scalar field, representing the operator of the scale anomaly.

Citations

• From AdS/CFT correspondence to hydrodynamics. II. Sound waves
• Sound waves in strongly coupled non-conformal gauge theory plasma
• The Large-N Limit of Superconformal Field Theories and Supergravity
• The large N limit of superconformal field theories and supergravity