A simple holographic model for spontaneous breaking of translational symmetry

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple holographic model with gauge-axion coupling to study spontaneous translational symmetry breaking, analyzing its effects on conductivity and Goldstone modes in a liquid-like state.

Contribution

It presents a novel holographic toy model demonstrating spontaneous breaking of translational symmetry with detailed analysis of Goldstone modes and conductivity.

Findings

Goldstone modes are dispersionless in the liquid state

Optical conductivity matches clean system behavior

Momentum relaxation pins the Goldstone modes at specific frequencies

Abstract

It has been shown that holographic massive gravities can effectively realize the states with spontaneous breaking of translational symmetry in a homogenous manner. In this work, we consider a toy model of such category by adding a special gauge-axion coupling to the bulk action. Firstly, we identify the existence of spontaneous breaking of translations by the UV analysis. In the absence of explicit breaking, the black hole solution is simply the same as the Reissner-Nodstrom(RN) black holes, regardless of the non-trivial profile of the bulk axions. The associated Goldstone modes exist only when the charge density is non-zero. Then, we investigate the optical conductivity both analytically as well as numercially. Our numerical result perfectly agrees with that for a clean system, while the incoherent part gets modified due to the symmetry breaking. The transverse Goldstone modes are dispersionless, which reflects the fact that the solution is dual to a liquid state. Finally, the effect of momentum relaxation to the transverse modes is also considered. In this case, the would-be massless modes are pinned at certain frequency, which is another key difference from unbroken phases.