Modulated instabilities and the AdS$_2$ point in dense holographic matter

We investigate fluctuations of hot and dense QCD plasma by using the gauge/gravity duality. To this end, we carry out a comprehensive classification and analysis of quasinormal modes of charged black holes in the holographic V-QCD model. It turns out that the Chern-Simons term determined by the flavor anomalies of QCD is strong enough to drive a modulated instability. While such an instability is expected at high densities, we find that the unstable phase extends to surprisingly low densities and high temperatures, close to the region where data from lattice simulations is available. We also analyze the limit of small temperature which is controlled by a quantum critical AdS$_2$ point. We study in detail the signatures of the critical point in the quasinormal mode spectrum, focusing on the interplay between the hydrodynamic modes and other modes.