Vacuum Instability in Electric Fields via AdS/CFT: Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian and Planckian Thermalization
Jul 28, 201337 pages
Published in:
- JHEP 10 (2013) 116
e-Print:
- 1307.7423 [hep-th]
Report number:
- OU-HET-790,
- RIKEN-MP-75
View in:
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Abstract:
We analyze vacuum instability of strongly coupled gauge theories in a constant electric field using AdS/CFT correspondence. The model is the N=2 1-flavor supersymmetric large N_c QCD in the strong 't Hooft coupling limit. We calculate the Euler-Heisenberg effective Lagrangian L(E), which encodes the nonlinear response and the quantum decay rate of the vacuum in a background electric field E, from the complex D-brane action in AdS/CFT. We find that the decay rate given by Im L(E) becomes nonzero above a critical electric field set by the confining force between quarks. A large-E expansion of Im L(E) is found to coincide with that of the Schwinger effects in QED, replacing its electron mass by the confining force. Then, the time-dependent response of the system in a strong electric field is solved non-perturbatively, and we observe a universal thermalization at a shortest timescale "Planckian thermalization time" t ~ 1/T ~ E^{-1/2}. Here, T is an effective temperature which quarks feel in the nonequilibrium state with nonzero electric current, calculated in AdS/CFT as a Hawking temperature. Stronger electric fields accelerate the thermalization, and for a realistic value of the electric field in RHIC experiment, we obtain t ~ 1 [fm/c], which is consistent with the believed value.Note:
- 41 pages
- AdS-CFT Correspondence
- Holography and quark-gluon plasmas
- Holography and condensed matter physics (AdS/CMT)
- field theory: conformal
- vacuum: stability
- gauge field theory: strong coupling
- supersymmetry: flavor
- electric field: high
- flavor: 2
- expansion 1/N: color
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