We continue our recently proposed holographic description of single-particle correlation functions for four-dimensional chiral fermions with Lifshitz scaling at zero chemical potential, paying particular attention to the dynamical exponent z = 2. We present new results for the spectral densities and dispersion relations at non-zero momenta and temperature. In contrast to the relativistic case with z = 1, we find the existence of a quantum phase transition from a non-Fermi liquid into a Fermi liquid in which two Fermi surfaces spontaneously form, even at zero chemical potential. Our findings show that the boundary system behaves like an undoped Weyl semimetal.

Strongly interacting Dirac semimetals are investigated using a holographic model especially geared to compute the single-particle correlation function for this case, including both interaction effects and nonzero temperature. We calculate the (homogeneous) electrical conductivity at zero chemical potential, and show that it consists of two contributions. The interband contribution scales as a power law either in frequency or in temperature for low frequency. The precise power is related to a critical exponent of the dual holographic theory, which is a parameter in the model. On top of that we find for nonzero temperatures a Drude peak corresponding to intraband transitions. A behavior similar to Coulomb interactions is recovered as a special limiting case.Comment: Published version, with additional discussion on inter- and intraband contributions and Drude peak. 7 pages, 5 figure

We study the electromagnetic properties of Weyl semimetals with strong interactions. Aiming for a large-N expansion, we induce strong interactions by coupling a Weyl fermion with a tunable coupling constant g f to a quantum critical system with a large number of order O(N ) fermionic and bosonic degrees of freedom. The critical fluctuations are described by a conformal field theory containing also fermionic composite operators with scaling dimension ∆. Employing the methods of the holographic correspondence, we then derive the effective theory of the Weyl fermions in the presence of external electric and magnetic fields in the large-N limit. In particular, we determine their frequency and momentum-dependent anomalous magnetic moment. We also determine the conductivity of the Weyl semimetal including the vertex corrections consistent with the Ward identity. Finally, we connect our construction to the case of Coulomb interactions in Weyl semimetals by tuning the parameters ∆ → 5/2 and g 2 f → e/ √ c 0.

We consider spin transport in a two-component ultracold Fermi gas with attractive interspecies interactions close to the BCS pairing transition. In particular, we consider the spin-transport relaxation rate and the spin-diffusion constant. Upon approaching the transition, the scattering amplitude is enhanced by pairing fluctuations. However, as the system approaches the transition, the spectral weight for excitations close to the Fermi level is decreased by the formation of a pseudogap. To study the consequence of these two competing effects, we determine the spin-transport relaxation rate and the spin-diffusion constant using both a Boltzmann approach and a diagrammatic approach. The former ignores pseudogap physics and finite lifetime effects. In the latter, we incorporate the full pseudogap physics and lifetime effects, but we ignore vertex corrections, so that we effectively calculate single-particle relaxation rates instead of transport relaxation rates. We find that there is qualitative agreement between these two approaches although the results for the transport coefficients differ quantitatively.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

We investigate recent results for the electrical conductivity and the fermionic self-energy, obtained in a holographic bottom-up model for a relativistic charge-neutral conformal field theory. We present two possible field-theoretic derivations of these results, using either a semiholographic or a holographic point of view. In the semiholographic interpretation, we also show how, in general, the conductivity should be calculated in agreement with Ward identities. The resulting field-theory interpretation may lead to a better understanding of the holographic dictionary in applied AdS/CMT.