Thermodynamics, transport and relaxation in non-conformal theories

Understand

We study the equilibrium and near-equilibrium properties of a holographic five-dimensional model consisting of Einstein gravity coupled to a scalar field with a non-trivial potential.

• The dual four-dimensional gauge theory is not conformal and, at zero temperature, exhibits a renormalisation group flow between two different fixed points.
• We quantify the deviations from conformality both in terms of thermodynamic observables and in terms of the bulk viscosity of the theory.
• The ratio of bulk over shear viscosity violates Buchel's bound.