Metallic AdS/CFT

Abstract

We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to compute the conductivity of massive = 2 hypermultiplet fields at finite baryon number density in an = 4 SU(Nc) super-Yang-Mills theory plasma in the large Nc, large 't Hooft coupling limit. The finite baryon density provides charge carriers analogous to electrons in a metal. An external electric field then induces a finite current which we determine directly. Our result for the conductivity is good for all values of the mass, external field and density, modulo statements about the yet-incomplete phase diagram. In the appropriate limits it agrees with known results obtained from analyzing small fluctuations around equilibrium. For large mass, where we expect a good quasi-particle description, we compute the drag force on the charge carriers and find that the answer is unchanged from the zero density case. Our method easily generalizes to a wide class of systems of probe branes in various backgrounds.