Holographic descriptions of multi-scale, strongly coupled gauge dynamics

Abstract

This thesis employs the dynamic AdS/QCD framework to investigate non-perturbative dynamics in strongly coupled gauge theories. We first study the approach to the conformal window, demonstrating that walking theories can exhibit low-energy properties which mimic those of infrared-conformal theories over a wide range of scales, posing a significant challenge for their unambiguous identification in lattice simulations. We then explore mass generation hierarchies in theories with matter in multiple representations. We begin with a theory with fundamental and two-index symmetric representation fermions, for which we predict a significant hierarchy in the meson spectra, with the higher-representation states becoming up to an order of magnitude more massive than their fundamental counterparts. We continue our exploration of mass hierarchies by analysing the separation between confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in a theory with adjoint fermions. We show that while a pure adjoint theory tightly couples these phenomena, the introduction of fundamental flavours can catalyse chiral symmetry breaking at a scale much lower than confinement, dramatically amplifying the hierarchy. Finally, we apply
our model to survey the landscape of strongly-coupled dark sectors, systematically mapping the light mesonic spectrum across the

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ORCID for Anja Alfano: orcid.org/0000-0003-0413-5917

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