Holographic non-Hermitian lattices and junctions and their RG flows

Abstract We construct and study inhomogeneous non-Hermitian strongly coupled holographic field theories. We consider two models: a lattice where in each site there is some inflow/outflow of matter and a Hermitian/non-Hermitian/Hermitian junction. By tuning a complex external gauge field, we find a n...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Daniel Areán, David Garcia-Fariña
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2025-07-01
Series:Journal of High Energy Physics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2025)276
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract We construct and study inhomogeneous non-Hermitian strongly coupled holographic field theories. We consider two models: a lattice where in each site there is some inflow/outflow of matter and a Hermitian/non-Hermitian/Hermitian junction. By tuning a complex external gauge field, we find a non-Hermitian model which can be mapped to a Hermitian one via a complexified U(1) gauge transformation. On the other hand, in the absence of the gauge field we find non-Hermitian solutions with a purely imaginary current. Despite this, all expectation values respect PT $$ \mathcal{PT} $$ symmetry and thus we expect the system to feature unitary time evolution. Nonetheless, we have not found a map bringing these solutions to a Hermitian description. We study the RG flows of solutions with imaginary current finding that in the IR they can be mapped to a Hermitian conformal fixed point via a complexified U(1) transformation. Remarkably, we also obtain solutions where the null energy condition is violated near the boundary of the dual geometry.
ISSN:1029-8479