How to sit Maxwell and Higgs on the boundary of Anti-de Sitter

TL;DR

This paper explores how mixed boundary conditions in holography can make boundary gauge fields dynamical, with applications to strongly coupled plasmas and holographic superconductors, revealing new insights into boundary dynamics and symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It introduces a novel use of mixed boundary conditions to dynamically activate boundary gauge fields in holography, with two practical applications demonstrated.

Findings

Boundary gauge fields can be made dynamical via mixed boundary conditions.

Holographic duals for dissipative magnetohydrodynamics are constructed.

Features of the Higgs mechanism are observed in holographic superconductors.

Abstract

In the context of bottom-up holography, we demonstrate the power of mixed boundary conditions to promote the boundary gauge field to be dynamical. We provide two concrete applications of this idea. First, we consider a holographic dual for a strongly coupled plasma described by dissipative magnetohydrodynamics. Second, we reveal the expected features of the Higgs mechanism in a not counterfeit holographic superconductor.