Phase Transitions, Inhomogeneous Horizons and Second-Order Hydrodynamics

We use holography to study the spinodal instability of a four-dimensional, strongly-coupled gauge theory with a first-order thermal phase transition. We place the theory on a cylinder in a set of homogeneous, unstable initial states. The dual gravity configurations are black branes afflicted by a Gr...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Attems, Maximilian, Bea, Yago, Casalderrey Solana, Jorge, Mateos, David (Mateos Solé), Triana Iglesias, Miquel, Zilhão, Miguel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/121742
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/121742
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Forats negres (Astronomia)
Holografia
Hidrodinàmica
Black holes (Astronomy)
Holography
Hydrodynamics
Descripción
Sumario:We use holography to study the spinodal instability of a four-dimensional, strongly-coupled gauge theory with a first-order thermal phase transition. We place the theory on a cylinder in a set of homogeneous, unstable initial states. The dual gravity configurations are black branes afflicted by a Gregory-Laflamme instability. We numerically evolve Einstein's equations to follow the instability until the system settles down to a stationary, inhomogeneous black brane. The dual gauge theory states have constant temperature but non-constant energy density. We show that the time evolution of the instability and the final states are accurately described by second-order hydrodynamics. In the static limit, the latter reduces to a single, second-order, non-linear differential equation from which the inhomogeneous final states can be derived.