Non-equilibrium physics at a holographic chiral phase transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a holographic chiral phase transition in a gauge theory, modeling the process with D7 branes in a boost-invariant plasma to understand phase structure and bubble formation.

Contribution

It introduces a method to study out-of-equilibrium chiral phase transitions holographically, including adiabatic and full PDE solutions for bubble formation.

Findings

Reproduces equilibrium phase structure out of equilibrium

Tracks quark condensate evolution during heating

Provides insights into bubble formation during phase transition

Abstract

The D3/D7 system holographically describes an N=2 gauge theory which spontaneously breaks a chiral symmetry by the formation of a quark condensate in the presence of a magnetic field. At finite temperature it displays a first order phase transition. We study out of equilibrium dynamics associated with this transition by placing probe D7 branes in a geometry describing a boost-invariant expanding or contracting plasma. We use an adiabatic approximation to track the evolution of the quark condensate in a heated system and reproduce the phase structure expected from equilibrium dynamics. We then study solutions of the full partial differential equation that describes the evolution of out of equilibrium configurations to provide a complete description of the phase transition including describing aspects of bubble formation.