Gauge/gravity duality is an important tool for learning about strongly coupled gauge theories. This thesis explores a set of examples of this duality in which the field theories have SU(2|4) supersymmetry and discrete sets of vacuum solutions. Specifically, we use the duality to propose Lagrangian definitions of type IIA Little String Theory on S⁵ as double-scaling limits of the Plane-Wave Matrix Model, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R x S² and N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R×S³/Zk. We find the supergravity solutions dual to generic vacua of the Plane-Wave Matrix Model and maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R×S². We use the supergravity duals to calculate new instanton amplitudes for the Plane-Wave Matrix Model at strong coupling. Finally, we study a natural coarse-graining of the vacua, and find that the associated geometries are singular. We define an entropy functional that vanishes for regular geometries, is non-zero for singular geometries, and is maximized by the thermal state.

Gauge/gravity duality is an important tool for learning about strongly coupled gauge theories. This thesis explores a set of examples of this duality in which the field theories have SU(2|4) supersymmetry and discrete sets of vacuum solutions. Specifically, we use the duality to propose Lagrangian definitions of type IIA Little String Theory on S⁵ as double-scaling limits of the Plane-Wave Matrix Model, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R x S² and N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R×S³/Zk. We find the supergravity solutions dual to generic vacua of the Plane-Wave Matrix Model and maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R×S². We use the supergravity duals to calculate new instanton amplitudes for the Plane-Wave Matrix Model at strong coupling. Finally, we study a natural coarse-graining of the vacua, and find that the associated geometries are singular. We define an entropy functional that vanishes for regular geometries, is non-zero for singular geometries, and is maximized by the thermal state.

Gauge/gravity duality is an important tool for learning about strongly coupled gauge theories. This thesis explores a set of examples of this duality in which the field theories have SU(2|4) supersymmetry and discrete sets of vacuum solutions. Specifically, we use the duality to propose Lagrangian definitions of type IIA Little String Theory on S⁵ as double-scaling limits of the Plane-Wave Matrix Model, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R x S² and N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R×S³/Zk. We find the supergravity solutions dual to generic vacua of the Plane-Wave Matrix Model and maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R×S². We use the supergravity duals to calculate new instanton amplitudes for the Plane-Wave Matrix Model at strong coupling. Finally, we study a natural coarse-graining of the vacua, and find that the associated geometries are singular. We define an entropy functional that vanishes for regular geometries, is non-zero for singular geometries, and is maximized by the thermal state. / Science, Faculty of / Physics and Astronomy, Department of / Graduate

Holographic dualities are now an established tool in the study of universal properties of strongly coupled field theories. Yet, theories without translational symmetry are still poorly understood in this context. In this dissertation, we investigate three new approaches to this challenging problem. The first part of the dissertation concerns a class of phenomenological holographic models in which momentum relaxation can be achieved without breaking translational symmetry in the dual geometry. In particular, we focus on an example in which the dual geometry is similar to anti-de Sitter (AdS) Brans-Dicke theory. We study the thermodynamic and transport properties of the model and show that for strong momentum relaxation and low temperatures the model has insulator-like behaviour. In the second part, we go beyond the effective description and consider holographic theories which explicitly break translational symmetry. From the perspective of gravity, these theories translate to geometries that vary explicitly in the boundary space-like coordinates. We refer to these geometries as 'inhomogeneous' and investigate two approaches to study them. The first is motivated by the question: "what happens to a homogeneous geometry when coupled with a field varying randomly in space?". Starting from an AdS geometry at zero or finite temperature, we show that a spatially varying random Maxwell potential drives the dual field theory to a non-trivial infra-red fixed point characterised by an emerging scale invariance. Thermodynamic and transport properties of this disordered ground state are also discussed. The second is motivated by the complementary question: "how does a random geometry affect a probe field?". In the weak disorder limit, we show that disorder induces an additional power-law decay in the dual correlation functions. For certain choices of geometry profile, this contribution becomes dominant in the infra-red, indicating the breaking of perturbation theory and the possible existence of a phase transition induced by disorder. The third and last part of this dissertation switches from the gravity to the field theoretical side of the duality. We discuss the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, a disordered many-body model with distinctive black hole-like properties. We provide analytical and numerical evidence that these holographic properties are robust against a natural one-body deformation for a finite range of parameters. Outside this interval, this system undergoes a chaotic-integrable transition.

O estudo de teorias de calibre não-Abelianas fortemente acopladas, em especial de aspectos térmicos e fora do equilíbrio, é um problema central para a compreensão da Cromodinâmica Quântica (Quantum Chromodynamics - QCD) - em particular, para entender a evolução do Plasma de Quarks e Glúons (Quark-Gluon Plasma- QGP). A técnica mais promissora, QCD na rede, obteve sucesso ao tratar de fenômenos no vácuo e em equilíbrio térmico, como espectros e termodinâmica, mas enfrenta desafios consideráveis ao lidar com fenômenos fora do equilíbrio. Uma ferramenta adaptada para lidar com problemas envolvendo plasmas fortemente acoplados em tempo real é a dualidade gauge/gravity, que mapeia uma Teoria Quântica de Campos (Quantum Field Theory - QFT) fortemente acoplada em d dimensões em uma teoria de gravitação em d + 1 dimensões, a qual, de modo geral, é mais fácil de ser resolvida. Nesta tese, estudamos diversas aplicações da dualidade gauge/gravity em teorias não-Abelianas fortemente acopladas que modelam qualitativamente o QGP. Nós estudamos o cálculo holográfico do potencial entre um par quark-antiquark pesado (QQ) para dipolos QQ estáticos e se movendo com relação ao plasma, apresentando um formalismo geral para o cálculo da parte real e imaginária para uma grande classe de teorias gravitacionais duais. Um estudo da massa de Debye holográfica, baseado no maior comprimento de correlação de operadores ímpares por transformações de CT, foi empreendido, com aplicações em modelos bottom-up que reproduzem a termodinâmica da teoria de Yang-Mills SU(Nc) pura e da QCD. Para estes modelos, também calculamos vários coeficientes de transporte associados com o transporte de cargas no plasma, como a condutitividade elétrica, a constante de difusão de carga e coeficientes de transporte associados a uma teoria de hidrodinâmica relativística de segunda ordem. / The study of strongly coupled non-Abelian gauge theories, especially concerning their thermal and non-equilibrium aspects, is a central problem for understanding Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) - in particular, to understand the evolution of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The most successful approach, lattice QCD, succeeds in dealing with vacuum and equilibrium phenomena, such as spectra and thermodynamics, but faces a considerable challenge when it comes to with non-equilibrium phenomena. A tool adapted to deal with real time problems in strongly coupled plasmas is the gauge/gravity, which maps a strongly coupled d dimensional Quantum Field Theory (QFT) to a d + 1 dimensional theory of gravity, which, in general, is easier to solve. In this thesis, we study several applications of the gauge/gravity duality to strongly coupled non-Abelian theories which model qualitatively the QGP. We deal with the holographic evaluation of the heavy quark-antiquark (Q Q) potential for static and moving QQ dipoles, presenting a general formalism for the computation of the real and imaginary parts for a large class of dual theories of gravity. A study of the holographic Debye mass, based on the largest screening length of CT-odd operators, is pursued, with applications on bottom-up holographic models that reproduce the thermodynamics of pure SU(Nc) Yang-Mills theory and QCD. For these models, we also compute several transport coefficients associated with charge transport in the plasma, such as the electric conductivity, the charge diffusion constant, and transport coefficients associated with a theory of second order relativistic hydrodynamics.

O estudo de teorias de calibre não-Abelianas fortemente acopladas, em especial de aspectos térmicos e fora do equilíbrio, é um problema central para a compreensão da Cromodinâmica Quântica (Quantum Chromodynamics - QCD) - em particular, para entender a evolução do Plasma de Quarks e Glúons (Quark-Gluon Plasma- QGP). A técnica mais promissora, QCD na rede, obteve sucesso ao tratar de fenômenos no vácuo e em equilíbrio térmico, como espectros e termodinâmica, mas enfrenta desafios consideráveis ao lidar com fenômenos fora do equilíbrio. Uma ferramenta adaptada para lidar com problemas envolvendo plasmas fortemente acoplados em tempo real é a dualidade gauge/gravity, que mapeia uma Teoria Quântica de Campos (Quantum Field Theory - QFT) fortemente acoplada em d dimensões em uma teoria de gravitação em d + 1 dimensões, a qual, de modo geral, é mais fácil de ser resolvida. Nesta tese, estudamos diversas aplicações da dualidade gauge/gravity em teorias não-Abelianas fortemente acopladas que modelam qualitativamente o QGP. Nós estudamos o cálculo holográfico do potencial entre um par quark-antiquark pesado (QQ) para dipolos QQ estáticos e se movendo com relação ao plasma, apresentando um formalismo geral para o cálculo da parte real e imaginária para uma grande classe de teorias gravitacionais duais. Um estudo da massa de Debye holográfica, baseado no maior comprimento de correlação de operadores ímpares por transformações de CT, foi empreendido, com aplicações em modelos bottom-up que reproduzem a termodinâmica da teoria de Yang-Mills SU(Nc) pura e da QCD. Para estes modelos, também calculamos vários coeficientes de transporte associados com o transporte de cargas no plasma, como a condutitividade elétrica, a constante de difusão de carga e coeficientes de transporte associados a uma teoria de hidrodinâmica relativística de segunda ordem. / The study of strongly coupled non-Abelian gauge theories, especially concerning their thermal and non-equilibrium aspects, is a central problem for understanding Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) - in particular, to understand the evolution of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The most successful approach, lattice QCD, succeeds in dealing with vacuum and equilibrium phenomena, such as spectra and thermodynamics, but faces a considerable challenge when it comes to with non-equilibrium phenomena. A tool adapted to deal with real time problems in strongly coupled plasmas is the gauge/gravity, which maps a strongly coupled d dimensional Quantum Field Theory (QFT) to a d + 1 dimensional theory of gravity, which, in general, is easier to solve. In this thesis, we study several applications of the gauge/gravity duality to strongly coupled non-Abelian theories which model qualitatively the QGP. We deal with the holographic evaluation of the heavy quark-antiquark (Q Q) potential for static and moving QQ dipoles, presenting a general formalism for the computation of the real and imaginary parts for a large class of dual theories of gravity. A study of the holographic Debye mass, based on the largest screening length of CT-odd operators, is pursued, with applications on bottom-up holographic models that reproduce the thermodynamics of pure SU(Nc) Yang-Mills theory and QCD. For these models, we also compute several transport coefficients associated with charge transport in the plasma, such as the electric conductivity, the charge diffusion constant, and transport coefficients associated with a theory of second order relativistic hydrodynamics.

A cromodinâmica quântica (QCD) é a teoria fundamental que rege as interações fortes, cujas partículas elementares são os quarks e gluons. Em termos de escala de energia, a QCD é caracterizada pela liberdade assintótica (quarks e glúons aproximadamente livres) e confinamento de cor (quarks e gluons confinados dentro de hádrons), sendo o primeiro tratado de maneira perturbativa e o último sendo um fenômeno intrinsicamente não-perturbativo. À temperatura finita, conforme se aumenta a temperatura, a matéria hadrônica sofre uma transição de fase do tipo crossover indo de um gás de hádrons ao plasma de quarks e glúons (QGP). Na vizinhança do crossover, onde os hádrons estão ``derretendo\'\' para formar o QGP, a QCD se encontra em uma região não perturbativa e portanto o QGP nessa região é fortemente acoplado, dificultando estudos analíticos. A chamada dualidade AdS/CFT, também conhecida como holografia, aparece para oferecer uma oportunidade única para o estudo do QGP ao prover um mapa entre teorias fortemente acopladas (muito difícil de serem resolvidas) e uma teoria de gravitação clássica. Na frente experimental, o estudo do QGP é feito em aceleradores de partículas colidindo íons pesados ultrarelativísticos. Nestes experimentos, o QGP criado sofre rápida expansão, com uma intrincada interação entre escalas duras e moles de energia, do estado inicial ao estado final. Tal cenário evidencia a necessidade de formular uma teoria para o QGP que inclua propriedades fora do equilíbrio. Afortunadamente, a dualidade holográfica encaixa-se bem para essa tarefa. Resolvendo-se as equações de Einstein dependentes do tempo, um problema da área da relatividade geral numérica, é possível estudar fenômenos fora do equilíbrio de plasmas fortemente acoplados. Ademais, o diagrama de fase da QCD no plano (T,mu_B), onde T é a temperatura e mu_B o potencial químico bariônico, permanece amplamente desconhecido devido a sua natureza não-perturbativa. Em particular, é conjecturada a existência de um ponto crítico delimitando o crossover de uma transição de fase de primeira ordem. Motivados por tais fatos, esta tese utiliza a dualidade holográfica para analisar o papel do ponto crítico na dinâmica fora do equilíbrio. Por exemplo, é apresentado aqui um estudo de como o ponto crítico afeta o tempo que leva para um plasma não-Abeliano fortemente acoplado adquirir comportamento hidrodinâmico partindo de um estado completamente fora do equilíbrio. / Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the fundamental theory that governs the strong interaction, whose fundamental particles are quarks and gluons. In terms of energy scales, QCD is characterized by asymptotic freedom (approximately free quarks and gluons) and color confinement (quarks and gluons confined inside hadrons), where the former can be treated perturbatively and the latter is an intrinsic non-perturbative phenomenon. At finite temperature, hadronic matter undergoes a crossover phase transition from a gas of hadrons to the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) as the temperature increases. Near the crossover, where hadrons ``melt\'\' to release quarks and gluons, QCD is in its non-perturbative regime and the QGP is strongly coupled, posing great challenges for analytical studies. The so-called AdS/CFT duality, also known as holography, comes to offer a unique opportunity to study the QGP by providing a map between strongly coupled theories (which are generally very hard to solve) and a classical theory of gravity. On the experimental front, the study of the QGP is carried out in particle accelerators by colliding ultrarelativistic heavy ions. In these experiments, the QGP created undergoes rapid expansion and there is a very intricate interplay between soft and hard scales, from initial conditions to final the stream of particles. This scenario makes it evident that one must understand the QGP also out of equilibrium. Fortunately, holography is well suited for this task. By solving the time dependent Einstein\'s equations, using general techniques previously employed in numerical general relativity, one can study non-equilibrium phenomena of strongly coupled plasmas. Furthermore, the QCD phase diagram on the (T,mu_B) plane, where T is the temperature and mu_B the baryon chemical potential, remains largely unknown due to its non-perturbative aspects. In particular, it is conjectured the existence of a critical point delimiting the crossover region from the first order phase transition. Motivated by these facts, this thesis employs holography to analyze the role of the critical point on far-from-equilibrium dynamics. For instance, it is investigated how the critical point affects the time that it takes for a strongly coupled plasma to display hydrodynamic behavior starting from a far-from-equilibrium initial state.

In the first part of this thesis, we study the duality of Wilson loops and M2-branes in AdS₄/CFT₃. We focus on supersymmetric M-theory solutions on AdS₄xY₇ that have a superconformal dual description on S³ = ?AdS⁴. We will find that the Hamiltonian function h_M for the M-theory circle plays an important role in the duality. We show that an M2-brane wrapping the M-theory circle is supersymmetric precisely at the critical points of h_M, and moreover the value of this function at those points determines the M2-brane actions. Such a configuration determines the holographic dual of a Wilson loop for a Hopf circle in S³. We find agreement in large classes of examples between the Wilson loop and its dual M2-brane and also that the image h_M(Y₇) determines the range of support of the eigenvalues in the dual large N matrix model, with the critical points of h_M mapping to points where the derivative of the eigenvalue density is discontinuous. We will then move away from the three-sphere and construct gravity duals to a broad class of N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories defined on a general class of three-manifold geometries. The gravity backgrounds are based on Euclidean self-dual solutions to four-dimensional gauged supergravity. As well as constructing new examples, we prove in general that for solutions defined on the four-ball the gravitational free energy depends only on the supersymmetric Killing vector. Our result agrees with the large N limit of the free energy of the dual gauge theory, computed using localisation. This constitutes an exact check of the gauge/gravity correspondence for a very broad class of gauge theories defined on a general class of background three-manifold geometries. To further verify that our gravitational backgrounds are indeed dual to field theories on their boundaries, we compute Wilson loops and their M2-brane duals in this general setting. We find that the Wilson loop is given by a simple closed formula which depends on the background geometry only through the supersymmetric Killing vector field. The supergravity dual M2-brane precisely reproduces this large N field theory result. This constitutes a further check of AdS₄/CFT₃ for a very broad class of examples.

Motivated by the AdS/CFT correspondence, new supersymmetric solutions to Type IIB and Type IIA supergravity are presented. These solutions contain $AdS_5$ or $AdS_4$ factors and are generated using T-duality symmetries of supergravity. The technique used to generate these solutions consists of performing a series of non-Abelian and Abelian T-dualities, sometimes with coordinate shifts in-between, to Freund-Rubin type seed backgrounds. An added bonus of the gauge fixing procedure inherent in non-Abelian T-Duality is the freedom to generate backgrounds with extra free parameters, some examples of which are presented. Aspects of the dual field theories of these new solutions are analyzed using holography techniques. The supersymmetry of these new backgrounds is also discussed. In addition to supergravity backgrounds with AdS, the study of generalized Calabi-Yau manifolds in the context of flux compactifications is briefly reviewed. The particular case of the resolved cone over $Y^{p,q}$ and its admission of generalized SU(3) structure solutions is examined. Contrary to geometries with $AdS$ factors, whose field theory duals are conformal field theories, these types of geometries can be phenomenologically interesting to study, as their gauge theory duals are minimally supersymmetric and confining, thus they could someday help aid our understanding of strongly-coupled QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics).

The holographic principle has become an extraordinary tool in theoretical physics, most notably in the form of the Anti-deSitter Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence, in which classical gravitational degrees of freedom in N-dimensions are related quantum field theory degrees of freedom in N − 1 dimensions in the limit of a large number of fields. Here we present an account of the AdS/CFT correspondence, also known as the gauge/gravity duality, from its origins in the large N 'tHooft expansion, up to Maldacena's proposal that type IIB string theory in the presences of D-branes at low energy is dual to an N = 4, d = 4, U(N) super Yang-Mills on AdS5 × S5 . We begin with an extensive review of (super)string theory including D-branes. We then present the general formulation of the AdS/CFT in the supergravity background of AdS5 × S5 , along with several examples of how it is used in terms of the identification of bulk fields with operators on the bound- ary of a CFT. We move on to discuss two applications of the gauge/gravity duality. The first is the application of the holographic gauge/gravity correspondence to the QCDk-string. The second applies the AdS/CFT formalism to a Kerr black hole solution embedded in 10-dimensional heterotic sting theory. These two applications of the holographic gauge/gravity duality comprise the original work presented here. We follow with summaries and discussions of the background material, the original work, and future investigations.