English

On holographic thermalization and gravitational collapse of tachyonic scalar fields

High Energy Physics - Theory 2013-04-09 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Nuclear Theory

Abstract

In this paper we study the thermalization of a spatially homogeneous system in a strongly coupled CFT. The non-equilibrium initial state is created by switching on a relevant perturbation in the CFT vacuum during Delta t >= t >= -Delta t. Via AdS/CFT, the thermalization process corresponds to the gravitational collapse of a tachyonic scalar field (m^2 = -3) in the Poincare patch of AdS_5. In the limit Delta t < 0.02/T, the thermalization time t_T is found to be quantitatively the same as that of a non-equilibrium state created by a marginal perturbation discussed in Ref. [5]. In the case Delta t >= 1/T, we also obtain double-collapse solutions but with a non-equilibrium intermediate state at t = 0. In all the cases our results show that the system thermalizes in a typical time t_T ~ O(1)/T. Besides, a conserved energy-moment current in the bulk is found, which helps understand the qualitative difference of the collapse process in the Poincare patch from that in global AdS[9, 10].

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1301.3796,
  title  = {On holographic thermalization and gravitational collapse of tachyonic scalar fields},
  author = {Bin Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.3796},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

24 pages, 13 figures, minor modifications, references added, final version to appear in JHEP