Open/closed string duality and relativistic fluids

Abstract: We propose an open/closed string duality in general backgrounds extending previous ideas about open string completeness by Ashoke Sen. Our proposal sets up a general version of holography that works in gravity as a tomographic principle. We argue, in particular, that previous expectations of a supergravity/Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) correspondence are naturally embedded in this conjecture and can be tested in a well-defined manner. As an example, we consider the correspondence between open string field theories on extremal D-brane setups in flat space in the large-N, large 't Hooft limit, and asymptotically flat solutions in ten-dimensional type II supergravity. We focus on a convenient long-wavelength regime, where specific effects of higher-spin open string modes can be traced explicitly in the dual supergravity computation. For instance, in this regime we show how the full abelian DBI action arises from supergravity as a straightforward reformulation of relativistic hydrodynamics. In the example of a (2+1)-dimensional open string theory this reformulation involves an abelian Hodge duality. We also point out how different deformations of the DBI action, related to higher-derivative corrections and non-abelian effects, can arise in this context as deformations in corresponding relativistic hydrodynamics.