Vacuum Instability in Electric Fields via AdS/CFT: Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian and Planckian Thermalization

Jul 28, 2013
37 pages
Published in:
  • JHEP 10 (2013) 116
e-Print:
Report number:
  • OU-HET-790,
  • RIKEN-MP-75

Citations per year

2013201620192022202402468101214
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