On the interplay between magnetic field and anisotropy in holographic QCD

Understand

We investigate the combined effects of anisotropy and a magnetic field in strongly interacting gauge theories by the gauge/gravity correspondence.

• Our main motivation is the quark-gluon plasma produced in off-central heavy-ion collisions which exhibits large anisotropy in pressure gradients as well as large external magnetic fields.
• We explore two different configurations, with the anisotropy either parallel or perpendicular to the magnetic field, focusing on the competition and interplay between the two.
• A detailed study of the RG flow in the ground state reveals a rich structure where depending on which of the two, anisotropy or magnetic field, is stronger, intermediate geometries with approximate AdS$_4\times \mathbb{R}$ and AdS$_3\times \mathbb{R}^2$ factors arise.