Holographic Schwinger-Keldysh effective field theories

Abstract

We construct a holographic dual of the Schwinger-Keldysh effective action for the dissipative low-energy dynamics of relativistic charged matter at strong coupling in a fixed thermal background. To do so, we use a mixed signature bulk spacetime whereby an eternal asymptotically anti-de Sitter black hole is glued to its Euclidean counterpart along an initial time slice in a way to match the desired double-time contour of the dual field theory. Our results are consistent with existing literature and can be regarded as a fully-ab initio derivation of a Schwinger-Keldysh effective action. In addition, we provide a simple infrared effective action for the near horizon region that drives all the dissipation and can be viewed as an alternative to the membrane paradigm approximation.