Nonlinear fluid dynamics from gravity

Abstract

Black branes in AdS 5 appear in a four parameter family labeled by their velocity and temperature. Promoting these parameters to Goldstone modes or collective coordinate fields - arbitrary functions of the coordinates on the boundary of AdS 5 - we use Einstein's equations together with regularity requirements and boundary conditions to determine their dynamics. The resultant equations turn out to be those of boundary fluid dynamics, with specific values for fluid parameters. Our analysis is perturbative in the boundary derivative expansion but is valid for arbitrary amplitudes. Our work may be regarded as a derivation of the nonlinear equations of boundary fluid dynamics from gravity. As a concrete application we find an explicit expression for the expansion of this fluid stress tensor including terms up to second order in the derivative expansion.