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Non-Hermitian Holography

by Daniel Areán, Karl Landsteiner, Ignacio Salazar Landea

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Submission summary

Authors (as registered SciPost users): Karl Landsteiner
Submission information
Preprint Link: scipost_202007_00057v1  (pdf)
Date accepted: 2020-08-10
Date submitted: 2020-07-13 02:00
Submitted by: Landsteiner, Karl
Submitted to: SciPost Physics Core
Ontological classification
Academic field: Physics
Specialties:
  • Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics - Experiment
  • High-Energy Physics - Theory
Approach: Theoretical

Abstract

Quantum theory can be formulated with certain non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. An anti-linear involution, denoted by PT, is a symmetry of such Hamiltonians. In the PT-symmetric regime the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian is related to a Hermitian one by a Hermitian similarity transformation. We extend the concept of non-Hermitian quantum theory to gauge-gravity duality. Non-Hermiticity is introduced via boundary conditions in asymptotically AdS spacetimes. At zero temperature the PT phase transition is identified as the point at which the solutions cease to be real. Surprisingly at finite temperature real black holes solutions can be found well outside the quasi-Hermitian regime. These backgrounds are however unstable to fluctuations which establishes the persistence of the holographic dual of the PT phase transition at finite temperature.

Published as SciPost Phys. 9, 032 (2020)


Reports on this Submission

Report #2 by Anonymous (Referee 1) on 2020-8-3 (Invited Report)

Strengths

see previous report

Weaknesses

see previous report

Report

I consider the authors' responses and changes satisfactory - although I note that they have not commented on whether they expect similar results to the ones presented here to extend to other choices of the bulk potential.

However, I do not consider this an important enough point to further delay acceptance of this nice work.

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Report #1 by Anonymous (Referee 2) on 2020-7-20 (Invited Report)

Report

The authors have made a significant effort to improve the presentation of their results in their paper.

In my opinion, the paper satisfies the general criteria of SciPost and the holographic realization of a non-Hermitian strongly coupled system is a novel result that can lead to future interesing developments in this direction, so I recommend that it is published.

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