Holographic Bjorken flow of a hot and dense fluid in the vicinity of a critical point

TL;DR

This study uses gauge/gravity duality to investigate how hydrodynamic behavior emerges near a critical point in a hot, dense relativistic fluid undergoing Bjorken expansion, revealing that proximity to the critical point delays hydrodynamization.

Contribution

First systematic holographic analysis of far-from-equilibrium dynamics near a critical point in a relativistic fluid using string theory-based models.

Findings

Hydrodynamization time increases near the critical point.

Critical point influences the approach to hydrodynamics.

Holographic model captures nonlinear evolution of the fluid.

Abstract

In this paper we use the gauge/gravity duality to perform the first systematic study of the onset of hydrodynamic behavior in a hot and dense far-from-equilibrium strongly coupled relativistic fluid with a critical point. By employing a top-down holographic construction that stems from string theory, we numerically obtain the full nonlinear evolution of the far-from-equilibrium system undergoing a Bjorken expansion and address the following question: how does hydrodynamic behavior emerge in the vicinity of a critical point in the phase diagram? For the top-down holographic system analyzed in the present work, we find that the approach to hydrodynamics is strongly affected by the presence of the critical point: the closer the ratio between the chemical potential and the temperature is to its critical value, the longer it takes for the system to be well described by the equations of viscous hydrodynamics.