The Hydrodynamics of M-Theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the hydrodynamic behavior of M-branes at finite temperature using the AdS/CFT correspondence, calculating transport coefficients like diffusion constants and viscosity from supergravity solutions.

Contribution

It provides the first calculation of hydrodynamic Green's functions and transport coefficients for M-branes in the low-energy, finite-temperature regime.

Findings

Calculated diffusion constants for M-branes.

Determined viscosity from stress-energy tensor correlators.

Revealed N dependence of transport properties.

Abstract

We consider the low energy limit of a stack of N M-branes at finite temperature. In this limit, the M-branes are well described, via the AdS/CFT correspondence, in terms of classical solutions to the eleven dimensional supergravity equations of motion. We calculate Minkowski space two-point functions on these M-branes in the long-distance, low-frequency limit, i.e. the hydrodynamic limit, using the prescription of Son and Starinets [hep-th/0205051]. From these Green's functions for the R-currents and for components of the stress-energy tensor, we extract two kinds of diffusion constant and a viscosity. The N dependence of these physical quantities may help lead to a better understanding of M-branes.