A Holographic Study on Vector Condensate Induced by a Magnetic Field

Abstract

We study a holographic model with vector condensate by coupling the anti-de Sitter gravity to an Abelian gauge field and a charged vector field in $(3+1)$ dimensional spacetime. In this model there exists a non-minimal coupling of the vector filed to the gauge field. We find that there is a critical temperature below which the charged vector condenses via a second order phase transition. The DC conductivity becomes infinite and the AC conductivity develops a gap in the condensed phase. We study the effect of a background magnetic field on the system. It is found that the background magnetic field can induce the condensate of the vector field even in the case without chemical potential/charge density. In the case with non-vanishing charge density, the transition temperature raises with the applied magnetic field, and the condensate of the charged vector operator forms a vortex lattice structure in the spatial directions perpendicular to the magnetic field.

v3: minor changes, references added, to appear in JHEP