title: Metal-insulator transition by holographic charge density waves.
abstract: We construct a gravity dual for charge density waves (CDWs) in which the translational symmetry along one spatial direction is spontaneously broken. Our linear perturbation calculation on the gravity side produces the frequency dependence of the optical conductivity, which exhibits the two familiar features of CDWs, namely, the pinned collective mode and gapped single-particle excitation. These two features indicate that our gravity dual also provides a new mechanism to implement the metal to insulator phase transition by CDWs, which is further confirmed by the fact that dc conductivity decreases with the decreased temperature below the critical temperature.
authors.affiliation: Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics and High Energy Physics, Department of Physics, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China and State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ling
authors.affiliation: Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, School of Mathematics and Physics, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, China.
authors.forename: Jian-Pin
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Zhuo-Yu
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Xian
authors.affiliation: Theoretische Natuurkunde, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and The International Solvay Institutes, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Hongbao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang