Bounds on Transport from Univalence and Pole-Skipping.

Bounds on transport represent a way of understanding allowable regimes of quantum and classical dynamics. Numerous such bounds have been proposed, either for classes of theories or (by using general arguments) universally for all theories. Few are exact and inviolable. I present a new set of methods and sufficient conditions for deriving exact, rigorous, and sharp bounds on all coefficients of hydrodynamic dispersion relations, including diffusivity and the speed of sound. These general techniques combine analytic properties of hydrodynamics and the theory of univalent (complex holomorphic and injective) functions. Particular attention is devoted to bounds relating transport to quantum chaos, which can be established through pole-skipping in theories with holographic duals. Examples of such bounds are shown along with holographic theories that can demonstrate the validity of the conditions involved. I also discuss potential applications of univalence methods to bounds without relation to chaos, such as for example the conformal bound on the speed of sound.

Convergence of the Gradient Expansion in Hydrodynamics.

Hydrodynamic excitations corresponding to sound and shear modes in fluids are characterized by gapless dispersion relations. In the hydrodynamic gradient expansion, their frequencies are represented by power series in spatial momenta. We investigate the analytic structure and convergence properties of the hydrodynamic series by studying the associated spectral curve in the space of complexified frequency and complexified spatial momentum. For the strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma, we use the holographic duality methods to demonstrate that the derivative expansions have finite nonzero radii of convergence. Obstruction to the convergence of hydrodynamic series arises from level crossings in the quasinormal spectrum at complex momenta.

Kinetic theory for classical and quantum many-body chaos.

For perturbative scalar field theories, the late-time-limit of the out-of-time-ordered correlation function that measures (quantum) chaos is shown to be equal to a Boltzmann-type kinetic equation that measures the total gross (instead of net) particle exchange between phase-space cells, weighted by a function of energy. This derivation gives a concrete form to numerous attempts to derive chaotic many-body dynamics from ad hoc kinetic equations. A period of exponential growth in the total gross exchange determines the Lyapunov exponent of the chaotic system. Physically, the exponential growth is a front propagating into an unstable state in phase space. As in conventional Boltzmann transport, which follows from the dynamics of the net particle number density exchange, the kernel of this kinetic integral equation for chaos is also set by the 2-to-2 scattering rate. This provides a mathematically precise statement of the known fact that in dilute weakly coupled gases, transport and scrambling (or ergodicity) are controlled by the same physics.

Transport Peak in the Thermal Spectral Function of N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Plasma at Intermediate Coupling.

We study the structure of thermal spectral function of the stress-energy tensor in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at intermediate 't Hooft coupling and infinite number of colors. In gauge-string duality, this analysis reduces to the study of classical bulk supergravity with higher-derivative corrections, which correspond to (inverse) coupling corrections on the gauge theory side. We extrapolate the analysis of perturbative leading-order corrections to intermediate coupling by nonperturbatively solving the equations of motion of metric fluctuations dual to the stress-energy tensor at zero spatial momentum. We observe the emergence of a separation of scales in the analytic structure of the thermal correlator associated with two types of characteristic relaxation modes. As a consequence of this separation, the associated spectral function exhibits a narrow structure in the small frequency region which controls the dynamics of transport in the theory and may be described as a transport peak typically found in perturbative, weakly interacting thermal field theories. We compare our results with generic expectations drawn from perturbation theory, where such a structure emerges as a consequence of the existence of quasiparticles.

Black Hole Scrambling from Hydrodynamics.

We argue that the gravitational shock wave computation used to extract the scrambling rate in strongly coupled quantum theories with a holographic dual is directly related to probing the system's hydrodynamic sound modes. The information recovered from the shock wave can be reconstructed in terms of purely diffusionlike, linearized gravitational waves at the horizon of a single-sided black hole with specific regularity-enforced imaginary values of frequency and momentum. In two-derivative bulk theories, this horizon "diffusion" can be related to late-time momentum diffusion via a simple relation, which ceases to hold in higher-derivative theories. We then show that the same values of imaginary frequency and momentum follow from a dispersion relation of a hydrodynamic sound mode. The frequency, momentum, and group velocity give the holographic Lyapunov exponent and the butterfly velocity. Moreover, at this special point along the sound dispersion relation curve, the residue of the retarded longitudinal stress-energy tensor two-point function vanishes. This establishes a direct link between a hydrodynamic sound mode at an analytically continued, imaginary momentum and the holographic butterfly effect. Furthermore, our results imply that infinitely strongly coupled, large-N_{c} holographic theories exhibit properties similar to classical dilute gases; there, late-time equilibration and early-time scrambling are also controlled by the same dynamics.

Coupling Constant Corrections in a Holographic Model of Heavy Ion Collisions.

We initiate a holographic study of coupling-dependent heavy ion collisions by analyzing, for the first time, the effects of leading-order, inverse coupling constant corrections. In the dual description, this amounts to colliding gravitational shock waves in a theory with curvature-squared terms. We find that, at intermediate coupling, nuclei experience less stopping and have more energy deposited near the light cone. When the decreased coupling results in an 80% larger shear viscosity, the time at which hydrodynamics becomes a good description of the plasma created from high energy collisions increases by 25%. The hydrodynamic phase of the evolution starts with a wider rapidity profile and smaller entropy.

Absence of Disorder-Driven Metal-Insulator Transitions in Simple Holographic Models.

We study electrical transport in a strongly coupled strange metal in two spatial dimensions at finite temperature and charge density, holographically dual to the Einstein-Maxwell theory in an asymptotically four-dimensional anti-de Sitter space spacetime, with arbitrary spatial inhomogeneity, up to mild assumptions including emergent isotropy. In condensed matter, these are candidate models for exotic strange metals without long-lived quasiparticles. We prove that the electrical conductivity is bounded from below by a universal minimal conductance: the quantum critical conductivity of a clean, charge-neutral plasma. Beyond nonperturbatively justifying mean-field approximations to disorder, our work demonstrates the practicality of new hydrodynamic insight into holographic transport.