We study some exact solutions in a D 4-dimensional Einstein-Born-Infeld theory with a cosmological constant. These solutions are asymptotically de Sitter or anti-de Sitter, depending on the sign of the cosmological constant. Black hole horizon and cosmological horizon in these spacetimes can be a positive, zero or negative constant curvature hypersurface. We discuss the thermodynamics associated with black hole horizon and cosmological horizon. In particular we find that for the Born-Infeld black holes with Ricci flat or hyperbolic horizon in AdS space, they are always thermodynamically stable, and that for the case with a positive constant curvature, there is a critical value for the Born-Infeld parameter, above which the black hole is also always thermodynamically stable, and below which a unstable black hole phase appears. In addition, we show that although the Born-Infeld electrodynamics is nonlinear, both black hole horizon entropy and cosmological horizon entropy can be expressed in terms of the CardyVerlinde formula. We also find a factorized solution in the Einstein-Born-Infeld theory, which is a direct product of two constant curvature spaces: one is a two-dimensional de Sitter or anti-de Sitter space, the other is a (D ÿ 2)-dimensional positive, zero or negative constant curvature space.

We obtain exact solutions of charged asymptotically Lifshitz black holes in arbitrary (d + 2) dimensions, generalizing the four dimensional solution investigated in 0908.2611 [hep-th]. We find that both the conventional Hamiltonian approach and the recently proposed method for defining mass in non-relativistic backgrounds do not work for this specific example. Thus the mass of the black hole can only be determined by the first law of thermodynamics. We also obtain perturbative solutions in five-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet gravity. The ratio of shear viscosity over entropy density and the DC conductivity are calculated in the presence of Gauss-Bonnet corrections.

We study several aspects of charged dilaton black holes with planar symmetry in (d+2)-dimensional spacetime, generalizing the four-dimensional results investigated in arXiv:0911.3586 [hep-th]. We revisit the exact solutions with both zero and finite temperature and discuss the thermodynamics of the near-extremal black holes. We calculate the AC conductivity in the zero-temperature background by solving the corresponding Schrödinger equation and find that the AC conductivity behaves like ω δ , where the exponent δ is determined by the dilaton coupling α and the spacetime dimension parameter d. Moreover, we also study the Gauss-Bonnet corrections to η/s in a five-dimensional finite-temperature background.

We study striped phases in holographic insulator/superconductor transition by considering a spatially modulated chemical potential in AdS soliton background. Generally striped phases can develop above a critical chemical potential. When the constant leading term in the chemical potential is set to zero, a discontinuity in the plot of charge density versus chemical potential is observed in the limit of large wave vector. We explain this discontinuity using an analytical approach. When the constant leading term in the chemical potential is present, the critical chemical potential is larger than in the case of a homogeneous chemical potential, which indicates that the spatially modulated chemical potential disfavors the phase transition. This behavior is also confirmed qualitatively by analytical calculations. We also calculate the grand canonical potential and find that the striped phase is favored.Comment: 31 pages, 28 figures, 1 table, to appear in JHE