27.03.2013 (Wednesday)

Stationary holographic plasma quenches and numerical methods for non-Killing horizons

Regular Seminar Pau Figueras (DAMTP, Cambridge)

at:
14:00 IC
room H503
abstract:

In this talk I will explain a new method to numerically construct stationary black holes with non-Killing horizons. As an example, we will use AdS/CFT to describe a time-independent CFT plasma flowing through a static spacetime which asymptotes to Minkowski in the flow's past and future, with a varying spatial geometry in-between. When the boundary geometry varies slowly, the holographic stress tensor is well-described by viscous hydrodynamics. For fast variations it is not, and the solutions are stationary analogs of dynamical quenches, with the plasma being suddenly driven out of equilibrium. We find evidence that these flows become unstable for sufficiently strong quenches and speculate that the instability may be turbulent. The gravitational dual of these flows are the first examples of stationary black holes with non-Killing horizons.