  We study striped phases in holographic insulator/superconductor transition by
considering a spatially modulated chemical potential in AdS soliton background.
Generally striped phases can develop above a critical chemical potential. When
the constant leading term in the chemical potential is set to zero, a
discontinuity in the plot of charge density versus chemical potential is
observed in the limit of large wave vector. We explain this discontinuity using
an analytical approach. When the constant leading term in the chemical
potential is present, the critical chemical potential is larger than in the
case of a homogeneous chemical potential, which indicates that the spatially
modulated chemical potential disfavors the phase transition. This behavior is
also confirmed qualitatively by analytical calculations. We also calculate the
grand canonical potential and find that the striped phase is favored.
