We re-examine holographic versions of the c-theorem and entanglement entropy in the context of higher curvature gravity and the AdS/CFT correspondence. We select the gravity theories by tuning the gravitational couplings to eliminate non-unitary operators in the boundary theory and demonstrate that all of these theories obey a holographic c-theorem. In cases where the dual CFT is even-dimensional, we show that the quantity that flows is the central charge associated with the A-type trace anomaly. Here, unlike in conventional holographic constructions with Einstein gravity, we are able to distinguish this quantity from other central charges or the leading coefficient in the entropy density of a thermal bath. In general, we are also able to identify this quantity with the coefficient of a universal contribution to the entanglement entropy in a particular construction. Our results suggest that these coefficients appearing in entanglement entropy play the role of central charges in odd-dimensional CFT's. We conjecture a new c-theorem on the space of odd-dimensional field theories, which extends Cardy's proposal for even dimensions. Beyond holography, we were able to show that for any even-dimensional CFT, the universal coefficient appearing the entanglement entropy which we calculate is precisely the A-type central charge.Comment: 62 pages, 4 figures, few typo's correcte

There is no known model in holography exhibiting a c-theorem where the central charges of the dual CFT are distinct. We examine a holographic model of RG flows in a framework where the bulk gravity theory contains higher curvature terms. The latter allows us to distinguish the flow of the central charges a and c in the dual field theories in four dimensions. One finds that the flow of a is naturally monotonic but that of c is not. Extending the analysis of holographic RG flows to higher dimensions, we are led to formulate a novel c-theorem in arbitrary dimensions for a universal coefficient appearing in the entanglement entropy of the fixed point CFT's.PACS numbers: 11.25. Tq, 11.25.Hf Introduction: Zamolodchikov's c-theorem [1] is a remarkable result for quantum field theories in d = 2. A direct outcome of the c-theorem is that in any renormalization group (RG) flow connecting two fixed points,

We study the properties of the holographic CFT dual to Gauss-Bonnet gravity in general $D \ge 5$ dimensions. We establish the AdS/CFT dictionary and in particular relate the couplings of the gravitational theory to the universal couplings arising in correlators of the stress tensor of the dual CFT. This allows us to examine constraints on the gravitational couplings by demanding consistency of the CFT. In particular, one can demand positive energy fluxes in scattering processes or the causal propagation of fluctuations. We also examine the holographic hydrodynamics, commenting on the shear viscosity as well as the relaxation time. The latter allows us to consider causality constraints arising from the second-order truncated theory of hydrodynamics.Comment: 48 pages, 9 figures. v2: New discussion on free fields in subsection 3.3 and new appendix B on conformal tensor fields. Added comments on the relation between the central charge appearing in the two-point function and the "central charge" characterizing the entropy density in the discussion. References adde

Quasi-topological gravity is a new gravitational theory including curvature-cubed interactions and for which exact black hole solutions were constructed. In a holographic framework, classical quasi-topological gravity can be thought to be dual to the large $N_c$ limit of some non-supersymmetric but conformal gauge theory. We establish various elements of the AdS/CFT dictionary for this duality. This allows us to infer physical constraints on the couplings in the gravitational theory. Further we use holography to investigate hydrodynamic aspects of the dual gauge theory. In particular, we find that the minimum value of the shear-viscosity-to-entropy-density ratio for this model is $\eta/s \simeq 0.4140/(4\pi)$.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figures. v2: References adde

We describe in more detail our approach to the conformal bootstrap which uses the Mellin representation of CF T d four point functions and expands them in terms of crossing symmetric combinations of AdS d+1 Witten exchange functions. We consider arbitrary external scalar operators and set up the conditions for consistency with the operator product expansion. Namely, we demand cancellation of spurious powers (of the cross ratios, in position space) which translate into spurious poles in Mellin space. We discuss two contexts in which we can immediately apply this method by imposing the simplest set of constraint equations. The first is the epsilon expansion. We mostly focus on the Wilson-Fisher fixed point as studied in an epsilon expansion about d = 4. We reproduce Feynman diagram results for operator dimensions to O( 3 ) rather straightforwardly. This approach also yields new analytic predictions for OPE coefficients to the same order which fit nicely with recent numerical estimates for the Ising model (at = 1). We will also mention some leading order results for scalar theories near three and six dimensions. The second context is a large spin expansion, in any dimension, where we are able to reproduce and go a bit beyond some of the results recently obtained using the (double) light cone expansion. We also have a preliminary discussion about numerical implementation of the above bootstrap scheme in the absence of a small parameter.

We use a low-energy effective description of gauge theory/string theory duality to argue that the Kovtun-Son-Starinets viscosity bound is generically violated in superconformal gauge theories with non-equal central charges c = a. We present new examples (of string theory constructions and of gauge theories) where the bound is violated in a controllable setting. We consider the comparison of results from AdS/CFT calculations to the QCD plasma in the context of this discussion.

We propose a new approach towards analytically solving for the dynamical content of conformal field theories (CFTs) using the bootstrap philosophy. This combines the original bootstrap idea of Polyakov with the modern technology of the Mellin representation of CFT amplitudes. We employ exchange Witten diagrams with built-in crossing symmetry as our basic building blocks rather than the conventional conformal blocks in a particular channel. Demanding consistency with the operator product expansion (OPE) implies an infinite set of constraints on operator dimensions and OPE coefficients. We illustrate the power of this method in the ε expansion of the Wilson-Fisher fixed point by reproducing anomalous dimensions and, strikingly, obtaining OPE coefficients to higher orders in ε than currently available using other analytic techniques (including Feynman diagram calculations). Our results enable us to get a somewhat better agreement between certain observables in the 3D Ising model and the precise numerical values that have been recently obtained.

We consider five-dimensional gravity coupled to a negative cosmological constant and a single U (1) gauge field, including a general set of four-derivative interactions. In this framework, we construct charged planar AdS black hole solutions perturbatively and consider the thermal and hydrodynamic properties of the plasma in the dual CFT. In particular, we calculate the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density and argue that the violation of the KSS bound is enhanced in the presence of a chemical potential. We also compute the electrical conductivity and comment on various conjectured bounds related to this coefficient.