Condensed matter physics of a strongly coupled gauge theory with quarks: some novel features of the phase diagram

Understand

We revisit the phase diagram of the N=4 SU(N_c) super-Yang-Mills theory coupled to N_f fundamental "quarks" at strong coupling using the gauge-gravity correspondence.

• We show that in the plane of temperature v.s.
• baryon chemical potential there is a critical line of third order phase transition which ends at a tricritical point after which the transition becomes first order.
• Close to the critical line there is an intriguing logarithmic behavior, which cannot follow from a mean field type of analysis.