Holographic superconductor/insulator transition at zero temperature

Abstract

We analyze the five-dimensional AdS gravity coupled to a gauge field and a charged scalar field. Under a Scherk-Schwarz compactification, we show that the system undergoes a superconductor/insulator transition at zero temperature in 2 + 1 dimensions as we change the chemical potential. By taking into account a confinement/deconfinement transition, the phase diagram turns out to have a rich structure. We will observe that it has a similarity with the RVB (resonating valence bond) approach to high-T c superconductors via an emergent gauge symmetry.