Viscosity bound and causality violation

In recent work we showed that, for a class of conformal field theories (CFT) with Gauss-Bonnet gravity dual, the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, eta/s, could violate the conjectured Kovtun-Starinets-Son viscosity bound, eta/s > or = 1/4 pi. In this Letter we argue, in the context of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2008-05, Vol.100 (19), p.191601-191601, Article 191601
Main Authors: Brigante, Mauro, Liu, Hong, Myers, Robert C, Shenker, Stephen, Yaida, Sho
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CAUSALITY
CONFORMAL INVARIANCE
ENTROPY
GRAVITATION
PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
VIOLATIONS
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Summary:In recent work we showed that, for a class of conformal field theories (CFT) with Gauss-Bonnet gravity dual, the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, eta/s, could violate the conjectured Kovtun-Starinets-Son viscosity bound, eta/s > or = 1/4 pi. In this Letter we argue, in the context of the same model, that tuning eta/s below (16/25)(1/4 pi) induces microcausality violation in the CFT, rendering the theory inconsistent. This is a concrete example in which inconsistency of a theory and a lower bound on viscosity are correlated, supporting the idea of a possible universal lower bound on eta/s for all consistent theories.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.191601