Thesis

Deformed Geometries and the Gauge/Gravity duality

• Call:

  FCT / IDPASC call 2012

• Academic Year:

  2012 /2013

• Domain:

  Theoretical Particle Physics

• Supervisor:

  Miguel Costa

• Co-Supervisor:

  João Penedones

• Institution:

  MAP-Fis

• Host Institution:

  Centro de Física do Porto

• Abstract:

  The proposed research program will mainly explore strongly correlated systems, which through the gauge/gravity duality, becomes also an exploration in black hole physics and quantum gravity. In recent years, there has been some effort to test the gauge/gravity duality, beyond analytically calculable observables, using numerical methods. A notorious example is the finite temperature Monte Carlo simulations of the D0-brane quantum mechanics, that matched predictions from the dual black hole thermodynamic analysis. Remarkably, in this study one is testing the duality by directly computing in both sides of the equivalence at the same regime, in this case at strong coupling. Within the proposed research plan we will further these studies and consider: the Hagedorn phase transition exhibited in some models, as it is the case of a massive deformation of the D0-brane quantum mechanics; corrections to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy area law that follow from the Wald formula and that now can be tested directly using the dual Matrix model; time dependent processes, like thermalization, which in the dual picture turn into the problem of black hole formation in AdS, a fundamental problem in non-linear gravity. More generally, we are interested in studying large N gauge theories that have a pure gravity dual. A promising approach is based on a large N reduction, similar to the old proposal of Eguchi and Kawai, of gauge field theories to a matrix quantum mechanics. Monte-Carlo simulations of this matrix quantum mechanics can again be used to explore large N gauge theories and to find new infra-red stable CFTs with an AdS gravity dual with only a finite number of light fields. The proposed work will be fully integrated within the international scientific community in the research area of the gauge/gravity duality, particularly through the participation in the ESF research network HoloGrav; the Marie Curie IRSES network UNIFY, and the recently approved Marie Curie ITN network GATIS.