Gravitational wave driving of a gapped holographic system

Abstract

This work addresses the response of a holographic conformal field theory to a homogeneous gravitational periodic driving. The dual geometry is the AdS-soliton, which models a strongly coupled quantum system in a gapped phase, on a compact domain. The response is a time-periodic geometry up to a driving amplitude threshold which decreases with the driving frequency. Beyond that, collapse to a black hole occurs, signaling decoherence and thermalization in the dual theory. At some frequencies, we also find a resonant coupling to the gravitational normal modes of the AdS-soliton, yielding a nonlinearly bound state. We also speculate on the possible uses of quantum strongly coupled systems to build resonant gravitational wave detectors.

25 pages, 13 figures, minor changes in v2. Final versions to appear in JHEP