Transport in Anisotropic Superfluids: A Holographic Description

TL;DR

This paper explores transport phenomena in anisotropic p-wave superfluids using holography, revealing non-universal shear viscosity, thermoelectric effects, and a novel flexoelectric effect due to anisotropy.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive holographic analysis of transport coefficients in anisotropic superfluids, including shear viscosity, thermoelectric, and flexoelectric effects, highlighting non-universality and new phenomena.

Findings

Non-universal shear viscosity in anisotropic superfluids.

Identification of thermoelectric effects due to electric-heat current mixing.

Discovery of a flexoelectric effect arising from anisotropy.

Abstract

We study transport phenomena in p-wave superfluids in the context of gauge/gravity duality. Due to the spacetime anisotropy of this system, the tensorial structure of the transport coefficients is non-trivial in contrast to the isotropic case. In particular, there is an additional shear mode which leads to a non-universal value of the shear viscosity even in an Einstein gravity setup. In this paper, we present a complete study of the helicity two and helicity one fluctuation modes. In addition to the non-universal shear viscosity, we also investigate the thermoelectric effect, i.e. the mixing of electric and heat current. Moreover, we also find an additional effect due to the anisotropy, the so-called flexoelectric effect.