A Non-Abelian Vortex Lattice in Strongly Coupled Systems

Abstract

The AdS/CFT correspondence predicts that background non-abelian magnetic fields induce instabilities in strongly-coupled systems with non-abelian global symmetries. These instabilities lead to the formation of vortex lattices in which the non-abelian currents "antiscreen" the applied magnetic field. From the bulk perspective, this behaviour can be traced to a well-known instability of Yang-Mills theory. We analyse the phase structure of the instability and comment on aspects of the vortex lattice.