Quantum critical superconductors in string theory and M-theory

We construct zero-temperature Solutions Of supergravity theories in five and four dimensions which interpolate between two copies of anti-de Sitter space, one of which preserves an Abelian gauge symmetry while the other breaks it. These domain wall solutions can be lifted to solutions of type IIB string theory and eleven-dimensional supergravity. They describe quantum critical behavior and emergent relativistic conformal symmetry in a superfluid or superconducting state of a strongly coupled dual gauge theory. We include computations of frequency-dependent conductivities which exhibit power law scaling in the infrared, with exponents determined by irrelevant perturbations to the symmetry-breaking anti-de Sitter background. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.