Towards a holographic dual of large-N QCD

by David Mateos (Perimeter Institute)

Tuesday 16 Dec 2003, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

TH Auditorium (CERN)

I will present a proposal to realize a holographic dual of non-supersymmetric, four-dimensional, large-N QCD using D6-brane probes in the background of D4-branes. I will discuss the limitations of the model, and then the physics it captures. Amongst other aspects, I will exhibit spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and the associated 'pion', demonstrate a holographic version of the Vafa-Witten theorem (that states that flavour symmetry cannot be spontaneously broken), and compute part of the meson spectrum. The latter contains a number of unexpectedly light scalars, and I will speculate on the string mechanism reponsible for their lightness. I will also discuss finite temperature physics, in particular phase transitions.