English

Non-universal shear viscosity from Einstein gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2011-05-05 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

A very famous result of gauge/gravity duality is the universality of the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density in every field theory holographically dual to classical, two-derivative (Einstein) gravity. We present a way to obtain deviation form this universality by breaking the rotational symmetry spontaneously. In anisotropic fluids additional shear modes exist and their corresponding shear viscosities may be non-universal. We confirm this by explicitly calculating the shear viscosities in a transversely isotropic background, a p-wave superfluid, and study its critical behavior. This is a first decisive step towards further applications of gauge/gravity duality to physical systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1011.5912,
  title  = {Non-universal shear viscosity from Einstein gravity},
  author = {Johanna Erdmenger and Patrick Kerner and Hansjörg Zeller},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.5912},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

11 pages, 2 figures. v2: small corrections

R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:49:38.803Z