Holographic zero sound from spacetime-filling branes

We use holography to study sound modes of strongly-interacting conformal field theories with non-zero temperature, T , and U(1) chemical potential, μ. Specifically, we consider charged black brane solutions of Einstein gravity in (3+1)-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space coupled to a U(1) gauge field with Dirac-Born-Infeld action, representing a spacetime-filling brane. The brane action has two free parameters: the tension and the non-linearity parameter, which controls higher-order terms in the field strength. For all values of the tension, non-linearity parameter, and T /μ, and at sufficiently small momentum, we find sound modes with speed given by the conformal value and attenuation constant of hydrodynamic form. In particular we find sound at arbitrarily low T /μ, outside the usual hydrodynamic regime, but in the regime where a Fermi liquid exhibits Landau’s “zero” sound. In fact, the sound attenuation constant as a function of T /μ qualitatively resembles that of a Fermi liquid, including a maximum, which in a Fermi liquid signals the collisionless to hydrodynamic crossover. We also explore regimes of the tension and non-linearity parameter where two other proposed definitions of the crossover are viable, via pole collisions in Green’s functions or peak movement in the charge density spectral function.