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  • Open Access

Shear mode transport coefficients from multiple polylogarithms

Paolo Arnaudo*

  • *Contact author: p.arnaudo@soton.ac.uk

Phys. Rev. D 113, 126011 – Published 8 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/db8h-1slc

Abstract

We present an analytical study of the transport coefficients associated with the shear sector of gravitational perturbations around asymptotically anti–de Sitter black branes. In the long-wavelength, low-frequency limit, the wave solutions admit a structure that is fully described in terms of multiple polylogarithms in several variables. We focus primarily on computing the coefficients of the dispersion relation for N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, by performing a bulk computation in the five-dimensional black hole background up to order q10, which extends the results previously available in the literature. We then generalize the procedure to d+1 dimensions, characterizing the mathematical structure of the resulting transport coefficient expressions.

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