A black hole effective theory for strongly interacting matter

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel black hole effective theory within gravity that, through gauge-gravity duality, models strongly coupled matter and phase transitions in field theories like Yang-Mills.

Contribution

It develops a new black hole effective theory inspired by high-dimensional limits to better understand phase transitions in strongly interacting field theories.

Findings

Accurately describes phase transitions in various theories.

Analyzes the interface between confining and deconfining phases.

Provides a new tool for studying strongly coupled matter.

Abstract

We establish a new tool for studying strongly coupled matter: an effective theory of black holes in gravity, which maps to a hydrodynamic description of field theories via the gauge-gravity duality. Our approach is inspired by previously known effective theories found in the limit of high number of dimensions. We argue that the new approach can accurately describe phase transitions in a wide class of theories, such as the Yang-Mills and other nearly critical field theories. As an application, we analyze the interface between confining and deconfining phases in holographic Yang-Mills theory.