Dynamical Spacetimes from Numerical Hydrodynamics
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
MIT-CTP-4607 Dynamical Spacetimes from Numerical Hydrodynamics Allan Adams,1 Nathan Benjamin,1, 2 Arvin Moghaddam,1, 3 and Wojciech Musial1, 3 1Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 2Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 3Center for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 We numerically construct dynamical asymptotically-AdS4 metrics by evaluating the fluid/gravity metric on numerical solutions of dissipative hydrodynamics in (2+1) dimensions. The resulting numerical metrics satisfy Einstein's equations in (3+1) dimensions to high accuracy. Holography provides a precise relationship between Review of Fluid/Gravity black holes in AdSd+1 and QFTs in d-dimensions at fi- nite density and temperature. When the QFT state lies We begin by recalling the essential features of the in a hydrodynamic regime (i.e. when d-dimensional gra- fluid/gravity correspondence for a (2+1) fluid as given dients are sufficiently small that the stress-tensor may in [1{4]. At equilibrium, a fluid moving with constant 3- µ be expanded as a power-series in derivatives), the dual velocity u at temperature T is dual to an asymptotically spacetime metric may also be so expanded, leading to an AdS4 black brane described by the metric [10] analytic “fluid/gravity" map between solutions of hydro- ds2 = −2u dxµdr−r2f(br) u u dxµdxν +r2P dxµdxν ; dynamics in d dimensions and dynamical asymptotically- µ µ ν µν AdSd+1 solutions of the Einstein equations. 3 where b = 4πT is the rescaled inverse temperature, This suggests a simple strategy for constructing nu- P µν =ηµν +uµuν projects onto directions transverse to merical solutions of the Einstein equations in asymptot- µ 1 u , and f(ρ) = 1 − ρ3 is the emblackening factor. It is ically AdSd+1 spacetimes: rather than solve the (d+1)- readily checked that this metric solves the Einstein equa- dimensional Einstein equations numerically, we may nu- tions so long as uµ and T are constant. merically solve d-dimensional hydrodynamics and use the If uµ(x) and T (x) vary in space and time, it follows fluid/gravity map to analytically construct the corre- that this metric is again a solution of the Einstein equa- sponding metric. So long as the fluid flow lies sufficiently tions when expanded to leading (trivial) order in gra- deep in the hydro regime, the hydro equations can be dients. When all gradients are small, it is possible to truncated at a desired order in the gradient expansion; systematically improve the metric order-by-order in gra- the resulting fluid/gravity metric is then an analytic so- dients to construct a solution of the (d+1)-dimensional lution of the Einstein equations up to errors of corre- Einstein equations provided that uµ(x) and T (x) solve sponding order. Na¨ıvely, this should be a much easier the equations of d-dimensional hydrodynamics. calculation, since one need only solve PDEs in 3d, rather Demonstrating this is simplified by working in a gauge than 4d. The main question in principle is whether the in which the nth-order corrections take the form, resulting algorithm is sufficiently robust to small depar- 2 (n) µ 2 µ ν tures from the true hydro solution and numerical errors ds(n) = −h (2uµdx dr + r Pµν dx dx ) to be useful. In practice, this will also serve as an inde- 2 + k(n)u u dxµdxν + j(n) u dxµdxν + α(n)dxµdxν : pendent check of the analytic results in the literature. µ ν ν r µ µν In this paper we construct numerical solutions to 2nd order dissipative relativistic hydrodynamics, evalu- Upon expanding to nth-order in gradients, the rr and ate the fluid/gravity metric on the resulting flows, and µν components of the Einstein equation reduce to linear arXiv:1411.2001v1 [hep-th] 7 Nov 2014 test the satisfaction of the Einstein equations on the equations for the functions h(n), k(n), j(n) and α(n), corresponding dynamical spacetimes. Implementing the 1 d d fluid/gravity map revealed minor typos in the literature r4 h(n)(r; x) = S(n)(r; uµ(x)) r4 dr dr h which we corrected by re-deriving the fluid/gravity ana- d 2 lytic map.[9] The resulting numerical metrics satisfy the − k(n)(r; x) + (1 − 4r3)h(n)(r; x) = S(n)(r; uµ(x)) Einstein equations with great precision. Concretely, we dr r k find that when the flow is hydrodynamic, the 0th order r d 1 d j(n)(r; x) = S(n)(r; uµ(x)) fluid/gravity metric provides good approximation of a so- 2 dr r2 dr ν jν lution to the Einstein equations for a wide range of fluid d 1 d flows within the hydro regime, and that the 1st and 2nd − r4f(r) α(n)(r; x) = S(n) (r; uµ(x)) ; dr 2 dr µν αµν order corrections improve the accuracy of this fluid met- ric appropriately, leading to accurate numerical metrics (n) where the \source" functions S (r; uµ(x)) may be ex- computed at low computational expense. ∗ plicitly computed order-by-order in the gradient expan- sion and depend only on n or fewer derivatives. These 2 equations are manifestly local in the fluid dimensions, x, Eq (3) of [1]. Since we work with a 2nd order stress ten- so solving them reduces to a series of numerically-simple sor, the resulting conservation equations are third order 1-dimensional integration problems. in time-derivatives of the fluid variables. To avoid spuri- (1) ous solutions and simplify our calculation, we treat the At first order, the sources take simple forms, Sh = 0, µν (1) (1) 1 (1) dissipative stress tensor Π as an independent dynami- S = −4rr·β, S = − @tβi, and Sα = 2rσij, where k ji r ij cal variable whose evolution is determined by the consti- σ = 1 r β + r β − 1 δ r·β, β is the fluid velocity ij 2 i j j i 2 ij i tutive relations a la Israel-Stewart. So long as we remain in the local rest frame at position x, β (x) = 0, and i, j i within the hydrodynamic regime, solutions of the result- label the spatial dimensions.[11] ing equations should relax toward solutions of the full Given these sources, the equations above can be inte- equations.[13] We use the satisfaction of the constitutive grated along the radial direction to give [12]: h(1) = 0, relations as a check on our numerical solutions. (1) 1 (1) (1) 3 (1) (1) 1 (1) k = − S , jµ = −r S , and αµν = Sα F (r), µν 4 k jµ r µν Upon fixing Landau gauge (uµΠ =0) and demanding where conformal invariance (Πµ =0), only 2 components of Πµν p µ −1 2r + 1 1 1 + r + r2 3π remain linearly independent. A convenient parameteri- F (r) = p Tan−1 p + log + ; zation for these two dissipative variables involves setting 3 3 2 r2 6 Π = (2 + u2 + u2)Π ; as presented in [1]. xy x y 2 At second order the sources are somewhat more cum- Πxx = 2(1 + ux) Σ + 2uxuy Π : bersome, so we refer the reader to [1] whose 2nd order sources we have analytically verified modulo minor typos All other components of Πµν may then be determined in (2) terms of regular functions of uµ times Π and Σ. in S and F2, which we find take the values, k The hydro equations then take the form M(u)_u = b(u), 1 1 + 4r3 where u is a vector of our five variables (ux, uy, T ,Σ S(2) = 2S + S − S + F (r) S ; k 3 2 5 2r3 6 2 7 and Π), while the 5 × 5 matrix M(u) and the 5-vector 2(1 + r)(1 − 4r3) −1 + 2r + 4r2 + 4r3 b(u) are non-linear functions of u and its spatial (but not F = F (r) + : time) derivatives. To determine the time-derivative of 2 r(1 + r + r2) r(1 + r + r2) our fields at a given point in space, we first evaluate the While the resulting metric satisfies the rr and µν com- required spatial derivatives of our fields, compute M and ponents of the Einstein equations, the rµ components of b, and then numerically solve this 5 × 5 matrix equation. the Einstein equations impose a further set of d condi- Having computed the time-derivatives, we propagate the tions. These constraints are equivalent to the conserva- solution forward in time via standard techniques. tion of the fluid stress tensor built from uµ(x) and T (x) In our numerical computations we fix periodic bound- at the corresponding order in the gradient expansion with ary conditions in both spatial directions with period a specific set of transport coefficients [1,2]. Thus, given L = 1500, with the initial temperature set to a constant 3 µ a solution u (x) and T (x) of the hydro equations of mo- T (0) = 4π . We represent all fields pseudospectrally in a tion, we can simply plug this flow into the fluid-gravity fourier basis of 306×306 plane waves, computing spatial metric equations and, upon solving a set of 1-dimensional derivatives spectrally and propagating the system for- ODEs along the radial direction, construct a numerical ward in time using Matlab's built-in general-purpose in- metric which satisfies the full Einstein equations to the tegrator, ode45. We focus on two classes of initial condi- appropriate order in the fluid gradients. tions: a superposition of the 1000 lowest-frequency plane waves with randomized amplitudes and phases; and, fol- Numerical Methods lowing [5], a line of 10 vorticity stripes generated by the 2π velocity field uy = cos(5 L x), to which we add small per- Our calculation is naturally divided into two steps.