Nonrelativistic fluids on scale covariant Newton–Cartan backgrounds

Abstract

The nonrelativistic covariant framework for fields is extended to investigate fields and fluids on scale covariant curved backgrounds. The scale covariant Newton–Cartan background is constructed using the localization of space–time symmetries of nonrelativistic fields in flat space. Following this, we provide a Weyl covariant formalism which can be used to study scale invariant fluids. By considering ideal fluids as an example, we describe its thermodynamic and hydrodynamic properties and explicitly demonstrate that it satisfies the local second law of thermodynamics. As a further application, we consider the low energy description of Hall fluids. Specifically, we find that the gauge fields for scale transformations lead to corrections of the Wen–Zee and Berry phase terms contained in the effective action.