Bulk Viscosity in Holographic Lifshitz Hydrodynamics

Understand

We compute the bulk viscosity in holographic models dual to theories with Lifshitz scaling and/or hyperscaling violation, using a generalization of the bulk viscosity formula derived in arXiv:1103.1657 from the null focusing equation.

• We find that only a class of models with massive vector fields are truly Lifshitz scale invariant, and have a vanishing bulk viscosity.
• For other holographic models with scalars and/or massless vector fields we find a universal formula in terms of the dynamical exponent and the hyperscaling violation exponent.