Cross effects in spin hydrodynamics: Entropy analysis and statistical operator

Abstract

We revisit the construction of first-order spin hydrodynamics and find that the constitution relations receive the corrections from the cross effects resulting from spin-orbit coupling. Starting from a routine entropy analysis, we show how to identify cross effects and new cross transport coefficients from the second law of thermodynamics. Interestingly, the conventional transport coefficient heat conductivity $\kappa$ is bounded from below by the product of cross transport coefficients, which means the threshold of heat conduction is changed. With recourse to Zubarev's non-equilibrium statistical operator, we reproduce the construction of first-order spin hydrodynamics and identification of cross effects in a more rigorous way. By seeking the dispersion relations of normal modes, we find that these cross effects suppress the attenuation of sound modes and heat mode appearing in conventional hydrodynamics and also have impacts on the damping of non-hydrodynamic spin modes.