Drag phenomena from holographic massive gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates how particles lose energy and momentum in a strongly coupled field theory with broken translation symmetry, using holographic massive gravity to analyze string dynamics and revealing novel ground state behavior and bounds on diffusion.

Contribution

It introduces a holographic model for drag phenomena in massive gravity, showing how broken translation invariance affects energy loss and diffusion bounds in strongly coupled systems.

Findings

Energy and momentum loss rates are computed for particles in massive gravity backgrounds.

An exotic ground state with non-zero entropy at zero temperature is identified.

An upper bound on the diffusion constant is established, saturated when graviton mass approaches zero.

Abstract

We consider the motion of point particles in a strongly coupled field theory with broken translation invariance. We obtain the energy and momentum loss rates and drag coefficients for a class of such particles by solving for the motion of classical strings in holographic massive gravity. At low temperatures compared to the graviton mass the behaviour of the string is controlled by the appearance of an exotic ground state with non-zero entropy at zero temperature. Additionally we find an upper bound on the diffusion constant for a collection of these particles which is saturated when the mass of the graviton goes to zero.