Spatially Modulated Phase in Holographic Quark-Gluon Plasma

TL;DR

This paper constructs a gravity dual model showing a spatially modulated phase in quark-gluon plasma, driven by Chern-Simons term instabilities, indicating a new phase at high baryon density.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel spatially modulated phase in holographic quark-gluon plasma using the Sakai-Sugimoto model, extending previous instability analyses.

Findings

Instability occurs on 8-branes in the Sakai-Sugimoto model.

A non-linear solution describes the transition endpoint.

New phase appears at baryon density above 0.8 N_f fm^{-3}.

Abstract

We present a string theory construction of a gravity dual of a spatially modulated phase. In our earlier work, we showed that the Chern-Simons term in the 5-dimensional Maxwell theory destabilizes the Reissner-Nordstrom black holes in anti-de Sitter space if the Chern-Simons coupling is sufficiently high. In this paper, we show that a similar instability is realized on the worldvolume of 8-branes in the Sakai-Sugimoto model in the quark-gluon plasma phase. We also construct and analyze a non-linear solution describing the end-point of the transition. Our result suggests a new spatially modulated phase in quark-gluon plasma when the baryon density is above 0.8 N_f fm^{-3} at temperature 150 MeV.