We consider Hull's doubled formalism for open strings on D-branes in flat space and construct the corresponding effective double field theory. We show that the worldsheet boundary conditions of the doubled formalism describe in a unified way a T-dual pair of D-branes, which we call double D-branes. We evaluate the one-loop beta function for the boundary gauge coupling and then obtain the effective field theory for the double D-branes. The effective field theory is described by a DBI action of double fields. The T-duality covariant form of this DBI action is thus a kind of "master" action, which describes all the double D-brane configurations related by T-duality transformations. We discuss a number of aspects of this effective theory.

We construct a 3+1 dimensional holographic model dual to a parity violating hydrodynamic system in 2+1 dimensions. Our model contains gravitational and electrodynamic Chern-Simons terms coupled to a neutral pseudo scalar θ, and a potential composed of quadratic and quartic terms in θ. The background is a charged black brane. We study the hydrodynamics to first order in spacetime derivatives near the probe limit of the pseudo scalar, by extracting the transport coefficients from the scalar, vector, and tensor modes of bulk perturbations. We study two mechanisms for breaking the parity of the boundary fluid: the parity is either spontaneously broken by the nonzero vev of the dual pseudo scalar operator, or by the pseudo scalar source on the boundary. We discover some novel temperaturedependent behaviors of the transport coefficients. It would be interesting to find these behaviors being realized in the real world materials.. 1

We consider black ring with a cosmological constant in the five dimensional N = 4 de Sitter supergravity theory. Our solution preserves half of the de Sitter supersymmetries and has one rotation symmetry. Unlike the flat case, there is no angular momentum and the stability against gravitational self-attraction is balanced by the cosmological repulsion due to the cosmological constant. Our solution describes a singular black ring since although it has horizons of topology S 1 × S 2 , the horizons are singular. Despite the singularity, our solution displays some interesting regular physical properties: it carries a dipole charge and this charge contributes to the first law of thermodynamics; it has an entropy and mass which conform to the entropic N-bound proposal and the maximal mass conjecture. We conjecture that the Gregory-Laflamme instability leads to a resolution of the singularity and results in a regular black ring.

We explore the possibility of detecting entangled photon pairs from cosmic microwave background or other cosmological sources coming from two patches of the sky. The measurements use two detectors with different photon polarizer directions. When two photon sources are separated by a large angle relative to the earth, such that each detector has only one photon source in its field of view, a null test of unentangled photons can be performed. The deviation from this unentangled background is, in principle, the signature of photon entanglement. To confirm whether the deviation is consistent with entangled photons, we derive a photon polarization correlation to compare with, similar to that in a Bell inequality measurement. However, since photon coincidence measurement cannot be used to discriminate unentangled cosmic photons, it is unlikely that the correlation expectation value alone can violate Bell inequality to provide the signature for entanglement.

By introducing interacting scalar fields, we tried to engineer physically motivated holographic phase diagrams which may be interesting in the context of various known condensed matter systems. We introduce an additional scalar field in the bulk which provides a tunable parameter in the boundary theory. By exploiting the way the tuning parameter changes the effective masses of the bulk interacting scalar fields, desired phase diagrams can be engineered for the boundary order parameters dual to those scalar fields. We give a few examples of generating phase diagrams with phase boundaries which are strikingly similar to the known quantum phases at low temperature such as the superconducting phases. However, the important difference is that all the phases we have discussed are characterized by neutral order parameters. At the end, we discuss if there exists any emerging scaling symmetry associated with a quantum critical point hidden under the dome in this phase diagram.