English

Beyond eta/s = 1/4pi

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-03-19 v3

Abstract

We use low-energy effective description of gauge theory/string theory duality to argue that the Kovtun-Son-Starinets viscosity bound is generically violated in superconformal gauge theories with non-equal central charges cac\ne a. We present new examples (of string theory constructions and of gauge theories) where the bound is violated in a controllable setting. We consider the comparison of results from AdS/CFT calculations to the QCD plasma in the context of this discussion.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0812.2521,
  title  = {Beyond eta/s = 1/4pi},
  author = {Alex Buchel and Robert C. Myers and Aninda Sinha},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0812.2521},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

44 pages, v2: Minor changes to numerics in section 4, references added, v3: published version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:51:39.100Z