Exotic holographic RG flows at finite temperature

TL;DR

This paper explores complex holographic RG flows and black hole solutions at finite temperature in Einstein-scalar theories, revealing phase transitions, non-trivial flows, and the impact of temperature on moduli spaces.

Contribution

It uncovers new finite-temperature black hole solutions, including those driven by vacuum expectation values, and analyzes their thermodynamics and phase structure.

Findings

Existence of multiple black hole branches with phase transitions.

Black hole solutions can exist without zero-temperature vacua.

Finite temperature can eliminate moduli spaces in certain theories.

Abstract

Black hole solutions and their thermodynamics are studied in Einstein-scalar theories. The associated zero-temperature solutions are non-trivial holographic RG flows. These include solutions which skip intermediate extrema of the bulk scalar potential or feature an inversion of the direction of the flow of the coupling (bounces). At finite temperature, a complex set of branches of black hole solutions is found. In some cases, first order phase transitions are found between the black-hole branches. In other cases, black hole solutions are found to exist even for boundary conditions which {\em did not} allow a zero-temperature vacuum flow. Finite-temperature solutions driven solely by the vacuum expectation value of a perturbing operator (zero source) are found and studied. Such solutions exist generically (i.e. with no special tuning of the potential) in theories in which the vacuum flows feature bounces. It is found that they exhibit conformal thermodynamics. In special theories with a moduli space of vacua (at zero temperature), it is found that finite temperature destroys the existence of the moduli space.