Anisotropic N=4 super-Yang-Mills plasma and its instabilities

We present a type-IIB supergravity solution dual to a spatially anisotropic finite-temperature N=4 super-Yang-Mills plasma. The solution is static and completely regular. The full geometry can be viewed as a renormalization group flow from an ultraviolet anti-de Sitter geometry to an infrared Lifshitz-like geometry. The anisotropy can be equivalently understood as resulting from a position-dependent θ term or from a nonzero number density of dissolved D7-branes. The holographic stress tensor is conserved and anisotropic. The presence of a conformal anomaly plays an important role in the thermodynamics. The phase diagram exhibits homogeneous and inhomogeneous (i.e., mixed) phases. In some regions the homogeneous phase displays instabilities reminiscent of those of weakly coupled plasmas. We comment on similarities with QCD at finite baryon density and with the phenomenon of cavitation.