AdS/CFT Duality User Guide
Makoto Natsuume
TL;DR
The work surveys $AdS/CFT$ duality with a practical, education-focused angle, bridging background topics such as string theory, general relativity, nuclear physics, nonequilibrium physics, and condensed matter physics to real-world holographic applications. It presents a structured path from fundamentals to $AdS$ spacetime constructions and to both equilibrium and nonequilibrium dynamics, including holographic probes, transport, phase transitions, and quark-gluon plasma applications. The key contribution is a coherent textbook framework that equips beginning graduate students and researchers from other fields with tools to apply holography to strongly coupled phenomena, supported by exercises. By organizing content across sections on equilibrium, nonequilibrium, various AdS spacetimes, and plasma applications, the guide enables practical use of $AdS/CFT$ as a calculational framework.
Abstract
This is the draft/updated version of a textbook on "real-world" applications of the AdS/CFT duality for beginning graduate students in particle physics and for researchers in the other fields. The aim of this book is to provide background materials such as string theory, general relativity, nuclear physics, nonequilibrium physics, and condensed-matter physics as well as some key applications of the AdS/CFT duality in a single textbook. Contents: (1) Introduction, (2) General relativity and black holes, (3) Black holes and thermodynamics, (4) Strong interaction and gauge theories, (5) The road to AdS/CFT, (6) The AdS spacetime, (7) AdS/CFT - equilibrium, (8) AdS/CFT - adding probes, (9) Basics of nonequilibrium physics, (10) AdS/CFT - nonequilibrium, (11) Other AdS spacetimes, (12) Applications to quark-gluon plasma, (13) Basics of phase transition, (14) AdS/CFT - phase transition, (15) Exercises.