Axial Chemical Potential Research Articles

Chiral separation effect from holographic QCD

We analyze the chiral separation effect (CSE) in QCD by using the gauge/gravity duality. In QCD, this effect arises from a combination of chiral anomalies and the axial U(1) anomaly. Due to the axial gluon anomaly, the value of the CSE conductivity is not determined by the anomalies of QCD but receives radiative corrections, which leads to nontrivial dependence on temperature and density. To analyze this dependence, we use different variants of the V-QCD, a complex holographic model, carefully fitted to QCD data. We find our results for the anomalous CSE conductivity at small chemical potential and nonzero temperature to be in good qualitative agreement with recent results from lattice QCD simulations. We furthermore give predictions for the behavior of the conductivity at finite (vectorial and axial) chemical potentials.

BCS in the sky: signatures of inflationary fermion condensation

We consider a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS)-like model in the inflationary background. We show that with an axial chemical potential, the attractive quartic fermion self-interaction can lead to a BCS-like condensation. In the rigid-de Sitter (dS) limit of inflation where backreaction from the inflaton and graviton is neglected, we perform the first computation of the non-perturbative effective potential that includes the full spacetime curvature effects in the presence of the chemical potential, subject to the mean-field approximation whose validity has been checked via the Ginzburg criterion. The corresponding BCS phase transition is always first-order, when the varying Hubble is interpreted as an effective Gibbons-Hawking temperature of dS spacetime. In the condensed phase, the theory can be understood from UV and IR sides as fermionic and bosonic, respectively. This leads to distinctive signatures in the primordial non-Gaussianity of curvature perturbations. Namely, the oscillatory cosmological collider signal is smoothly turned off at a finite momentum ratio, since different momentum ratios effectively probe different energy scales. In addition, such BCS phase transitions can also source stochastic gravitational waves, which are feasible for future experiments.

Vortical effects in Dirac fluids with vector, chiral and helical charges

Helicity of free massless Dirac fermions is a conserved, Lorentz-invariant quantity at the level of the classical equations of motion. For a generic ensemble consisting of particles and antiparticles, the helical and chiral charges are different conserved quantities. The flow of helicity can be modelled by the helicity current, which is again conserved in the absence of interactions. Similar to the axial vortical effect which generates an axial (chiral) current, the helicity current is induced by vorticity in a finite temperature medium with vector (electrical) charge imbalance via the helical vortical effects, leading to new nondissipative transport phenomena. These phenomena lead to the appearance of a new hydrodynamic excitation, the helical vortical wave. Our results suggest the existence of a new type of triangle anomalies in QED which involve the helicity currents in addition to the standard vector and axial currents. Further exploiting the conservation of the helical current, we show that a finite helical chemical potential may be used to characterise thermodynamic ensembles of fermions similarly to, but independently of, the vector charge and chirality. We derive the pressure P for fermions at finite vector, axial and helical chemical potentials and show that the quantities arising in anomalous transport, including various vortical and circular conductivities and the shear-stress coefficients, can be obtained by differentiation of P with respect to the appropriate chemical potentials. Finally, we calculate the helicity relaxation time in the quark-gluon plasma above the crossover and show that it is similar to that for the axial charge.

Anomalous Hall instability in the Chern-Simons magnetohydrodynamics

The Chern-Simons magnetohydrodynamics (CSMHD) is introduced using a Maxwell-Chern-Simons (MCS) Lagrangian including an axion-like field $\Theta$. The MCS equation of motion derived from this Lagrangian consists of a modified current, including a chiral magnetic (CM) and an anomalous Hall (AH) current, in addition to the ordinary Ohm current of resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). The former consists of an axial chemical potential, which is given in terms of the temporal comoving derivative of $\Theta$, and the latter arises from the spatial gradient of $\Theta$. As it turns out, the existence of the axial chemical potential is a nonequilibrium effect that plays no role in the linear stability analysis, whereas the AH current arises as in the first-order linear perturbation of the thermal equilibrium. We analyze the linear stability and causality of the CSMHD in a resistive and chiral medium. We show that the Alfven modes propagating sufficiently close to the direction of the magnetic field are unstable but causal. They are also accompanied by a genuine nonhydro mode. A stable mode in a particular direction can correspond to an unstable mode propagating in the exact opposite direction. The AH instability is a manifestation of a breakdown of the parity. A numerical analysis of the phase velocity confirms these results.

Polarization as a signature of local parity violation in hot QCD matter

We show that local parity violation due to chirality imbalance in relativistic nuclear collisions can be revealed by measuring the projection of the polarization vector onto the momentum, i.e. the helicity, of final state baryons. The proposed method does not require a coupling to the electromagnetic field, like in the Chiral Magnetic Effect. By using linear response theory, we show that, in the presence of a chiral imbalance, the spin 1/2 baryons and anti-baryons receive an additional contribution to the polarization along their momentum and proportional to the axial chemical potential. The additional, parity-breaking, contribution to helicity can be detected by studying helicity-helicity azimuthal angular correlation.

Chiral magnetic effect and three-point function from AdS/CFT correspondence

The chiral magnetic effect with a fluctuating chiral imbalance is more realistic in the evolution of quark-gluon plasma, which reflects the random gluonic topological transition. Incorporating this dynamics, we calculate the chiral magnetic current in response to space-time dependent axial gauge potential and magnetic field in AdS/CFT correspondence. In contrast to conventional treatment of constant axial chemical potential, the response function here is the AVV three-point function of the mathcal{N} = 4 super Yang-Mills at strong coupling. Through an iterative solution of the nonlinear equations of motion in Schwarzschild-AdS5 background, we are able to express the AVV function in terms of two Heun functions and prove its UV/IR finiteness, as expected for mathcal{N} = 4 super Yang-Mills theory. We found that the dependence of the chiral magnetic current on a non-constant chiral imbalance is non-local, different from hydrodynamic approximation, and demonstrates the subtlety of the infrared limit discovered in field theoretic approach. We expect our results enrich the understanding of the phenomenology of the chiral magnetic effect in the context of relativistic heavy ion collisions.

Tunable photonic spin Hall effect due to the chiral Hall effect in strained Weyl semimetals

The latest research suggests that strain can be utilized to engineer the electronic states of Weyl semimetals (WSMs) through creating a pseudo-magnetic field B el. The response of strained WSMs to a real time-varying electric field E with E ⊥ B el can cause spatial chirality and charge separation in WSMs, i.e., the chiral Hall effect (CHE). Herein, the photonic spin Hall effect (PSHE) modified by CHE in strained WSM thin films is studied. We show that the in-plane and transverse photonic spin-dependent shifts (⟨Δx +⟩ and ⟨Δy +⟩) can be tuned to be more than 400 and 50 times of incident wavelength, respectively, at the angular frequency being close to the cyclotron frequency of massless fermions in the pseudo-magnetic field. In order to enhance the PSHE, epsilon-near-zero materials take priority of being as the substrates of WSM films. Besides, both ⟨Δx +⟩ and ⟨Δy +⟩ generally give extreme values around incident angles at which Fresnel reflection coefficients exhibit local minimums, whereas an inversion-symmetry breaking with nonzero axial chemical potential may break this generality. Finally, one possible experimental strategy for observing this CHE tuned PSHE is schemed, which may provide a pristine optical technique to precisely engineer and detect the strain in topological materials.

Noncommutativity of the static and homogeneous limit of the axial chemical potential in the chiral magnetic effect

We study the noncommutativity of different orders of zero energy-momentum limit pertaining to the axial chemical potential in the chiral magnetic effect. While this noncommutativity issue originates from the pinching singularity at one-loop order, it cannot be removed by introducing a damping term to the fermion propagators. The physical reason is that modifying the propagator alone would violate the axial-vector Ward identity and as a result a modification of the longitudinal component of the axial-vector vertex is required, which contributes to chiral magnetic effect (CME). The pinching singularity with free fermion propagators was then taken over by the singularity stemming from the dressed axial-vector vertex. We show this mechanism by a concrete example. Moreover, we proved, in general, the vanishing CME in the limit order that the static limit was taken prior to the homogeneous limit in the light of Coleman-Hill theorem for a static external magnetic field. For the opposite limit that the homogeneous limit is taken first, we show that the nonvanishing CME was a consequence of the nonrenormalization of chiral anomaly for an arbitrary external magnetic field.

Chiral perturbation theory for nonzero chiral imbalance

We construct the most general low-energy effective lagrangian including local parity violating terms parametrized by an axial chemical potential or chiral imbalance μ5, up to mathcal{O}left({p}^4right) order in the chiral expansion for two light flavours. For that purpose, we work within the Chiral Perturbation Theory framework where only pseudo-NGB fields are included, following the external source method. The mathcal{O}left({p}^2right) lagrangian is only modified by constant terms, while the mathcal{O}left({p}^4right) one includes new terms proportional to {mu}_5^2 and new low-energy constants (LEC), which are renormalized and related to particular observables. In particular, we analyze the corrections to the pion dispersion relation and observables related to the vacuum energy density, namely the light quark condensate, the chiral and topological susceptibilities and the chiral charge density, providing numerical determinations of the new LEC when possible. In particular, we explore the dependence of the chiral restoration temperature Tc with μ5. An increasing Tc(μ5) is consistent with our fits to lattice data of the ChPT-based expressions. Although lattice uncertainties are still large and translate into the new LEC determination, a consistent physical description of those observables emerges from our present work, providing a theoretically robust model-independent framework for further study of physical systems where parity-breaking effects may be relevant, such as heavy-ion collisions.

General thermodynamic equilibrium with axial chemical potential for the free Dirac field

We calculate the constitutive equations of the stress-energy tensor and the currents of the free massless Dirac field at thermodynamic equilibrium with acceleration and rotation and a conserved axial charge by using the density operator approach. We carry out an expansion in thermal vorticity to the second order with finite axial chemical potential μA. The obtained coefficients of the expansion are expressed as correlators of angular momenta and boost operators with the currents. We confirm previous observations that the axial chemical potential induces non-vanishing components of the stress-energy tensor at first order in thermal vorticity due to breaking of parity invariance of the density operator with μA ≠ 0. The appearance of these components might play an important role in chiral hydrodynamics.

Side-jump induced spin-orbit interaction of chiral fluids from kinetic theory

We apply the Wigner-function approach and chiral kinetic theory to investigate the angular momentum and polarization of chiral fluids composed of Weyl fermions with background electric/magnetic fields and vorticity. It is found that the quantum corrections in Wigner functions give rise to nonzero anti-symmetric components in the canonical energy-momentum tensors, which are responsible for the spin-orbit interaction. In global equilibrium, conservation of the canonical angular momentum reveals the cancellation between the orbital component stemming from side jumps with nonzero vorticity and the spin component in the presence of an axial chemical potential. We further analyze the conservation laws near local equilibrium. It turns out that the canonical angular momentum is no longer conserved even in the absence of background fields due to the presence of a local torque coming from the spin-orbit interaction involving temperature/chemical-potential gradients, which is implicitly led by collisions.

QCD with Chiral Chemical Vector: Models Versus Lattices

A formation of Local Parity Breaking (LPB) in central heavy-ion collisions (HIC) at high energies is discussed. LPB in the fireball can be produced by a difference between the number densities of right- and left-handed chiral fermions (Chiral Imbalance) which is implemented by a chiral (axial) chemical potential. Based on the effective meson Lagrangian motivated by QCD in the chiral medium the properties of light scalar and pseudoscalar mesons (π, a0) are analyzed. It is found that exotic decays of scalar mesons arise as a result of mixing of π and a0 vacuum states in the presence of chiral imbalance. The pion electromagnetic formfactor obtains a parity-odd supplement which generates a photon polarization asymmetry in pion polarizability. We believe that the above-mentioned properties of LPB can be revealed in experiments on LHC, RHIC, CBM FAIR and NICA accelerators.

IR properties of chiral effects in pionic matter

Chiral effects exhibit peculiar universality in idealized theoretical limits. However, they are known to be infrared sensitive and get modified in more realistic settings. In this work, we study how the corresponding conductivities vary with the constituent mass. We concentrate on a pionic realization of chiral effects which provides a better control over infrared properties of the theory. The pionic medium is considered at finite vector and axial isospin chemical potentials in the presence of an external magnetic field. This system supports electric and axial isospin currents along the magnetic field which correspond to chiral magnetic and chiral separation effects. We show that these currents are sensitive to the finite mass of the constituents, but the conductivities follow a simple scaling with the corresponding charge densities as one would expect for polarization effects. It is argued that this relation can capture the dependence of chiral effects on other infrared parameters. Finally, we briefly comment on the realization of the 't Hooft matching condition in pionic media at finite densities.

Field theoretic perspectives of the Wigner function formulation of the chiral magnetic effect

We assess the applicability of the Wigner function formulation in its present form to the chiral Magnetic Effect and noted some issues regarding the conservation and the consistency of the electric current in the presence of an inhomogeneous and time dependent axial chemical potential. The problems are rooted in the ultraviolet divergence of the underlying field theory associated with the axial anomaly and can be fixed with the Pauli-Villars regularization of the Wigner function.

Anomalous transport from holography: part II

This is a second study of chiral anomaly-induced transport within a holographic model consisting of anomalous U(1)_Vtimes U(1)_A Maxwell theory in Schwarzschild–AdS_5 spacetime. In the first part, chiral magnetic/separation effects (CME/CSE) are considered in the presence of a static spatially inhomogeneous external magnetic field. Gradient corrections to CME/CSE are analytically evaluated up to third order in the derivative expansion. Some of the third order gradient corrections lead to an anomaly-induced negative B^2-correction to the diffusion constant. We also find modifications to the chiral magnetic wave nonlinear in B. In the second part, we focus on the experimentally interesting case of the axial chemical potential being induced dynamically by a constant magnetic and time-dependent electric fields. Constitutive relations for the vector/axial currents are computed employing two different approximations: (a) derivative expansion (up to third order) but fully nonlinear in the external fields, and (b) weak electric field limit but resuming all orders in the derivative expansion. A non-vanishing nonlinear axial current (CSE) is found in the first case. The dependence on magnetic field and frequency of linear transport coefficient functions is explored in the second.

Chiral imbalance in QCD

The chiral imbalance (ChI) is given by a difference between the numbers of RH and LH quarks which may occur in the fireball after heavy ion collision. To characterize it adiabatically a quark chiral (axial) chemical potential must be introduced taking into account emergence of a ChI in such a phase. In this report the phenomenology of formation of Local spatial Parity Breaking (LPB) in the hot and dense baryon matter is discussed and its simulation within a number of QCD-inspired models is outlined. The appearance of new states in the spectra of scalar, pseudoscalar and vector particles in such a matter is elucidated. In particular, from the effective vector meson theory in the presence of Chern-Simons interaction it is demonstrated that the spectrum of massive vector mesons splits into three polarization components with different effective masses. The asymmetry in production of longitudinally and transversely polarized states of ρ and ω mesons for various values of the dilepton invariant mass can serve as a characteristic indication of the LPB in PHENIX, STAR and ALICE experiments.

Exotic meson decays in the environment with chiral imbalance

An emergence of Local Parity Breaking (LPB) in central heavy-ion collisions (HIC) at high energies is discussed. LPB in the fireball can be produced by a difference between the number densities of right- and left-handed chiral fermions (Chiral Imbalance) which is implemented by a chiral (axial) chemical potential. The effective meson lagrangian induced by QCD is extended to the medium with Chiral Imbalance and the properties of light scalar and pseudoscalar mesons ($\pi, a_0$) are analyzed. It is shown that exotic decays of scalar mesons arise as a result of mixing of $ \pi $ and $ a_0 $ vacuum states in the presence of chiral imbalance. The pion electromagnetic formfactor obtains an unusual parity-odd supplement which generates a photon polarization asymmetry in pion polarizability. We hope that the above pointed indications of LPB can be identified in experiments on LHC, RHIC, CBM FAIR and NICA accelerators.

QCD with Chiral Imbalance: models vs. lattice

In heavy ion collisions (HIC) at high energies there may appear new phases of matter which must be described by QCD. These phases may have different color and flavour symmetries associated with the constituents involved in collisions as well as various space-time symmetries of hadron matter. Properties of the QCD medium in such a matter can be approximately described, in particular, by a number of right-handed (RH) and left-handed (LH) light quarks. The chiral imbalance (ChI) is characterized by the difference between the numbers of RH and LH quarks and supposedly occurs in the fireball after HIC. Accordingly we have to introduce a quark chiral (axial) chemical potential which simulates a ChI emerging in such a phase. In this report we discuss the possibility of a phase with Local spatial Parity Breaking (LPB) in such an environment and outline conceivable signatures for the registration of LPB as well as the appearance of new states in the spectra of scalar, pseudoscalar and vector particles as a consequence of local ChI. The comparison of the results obtained in the effective QCD- motivated models with lattice data is also performed.

Equilibrium instability of chiral mesons in external electromagnetic field via AdS/CFT

We study the equilibrium instability of chiral quarkonia in a plasma in the presence of constant magnetic and electric field and at finite axial chemical potential using AdS/CFT duality. The model in use is a supersymmetric QCD at large ’t Hooft coupling and number of colors. We show that the presence of the magnetic field and the axial chemical potential even in the absence of the electric field make the system unstable. In a gapped system, a stable/unstable equilibrium state phase transition is observed and the initial transition amplitude of the equilibrium state to the non-equilibrium state is investigated. We demonstrate that at zero temperature and large magnetic field the instability grows linearly by increasing the quarkonium binding energy. In the constant electric and magnetic field, the system is in a equilibrium state if the Ohm’s law and the chiral magnetic effect cancel their effects. This happens in a sub-space of (E, B, T, μ 5) space with constraint equation σ B B = −σE, where σ and σ B are electric and chiral magnetic conductivity, respectively. We analyze the decay rate of a gapless system when this constraint is slightly violated.

Chiral Hall effect and chiral electric waves

We investigate the vector and axial currents induced by external electromagnetic fields and chemical potentials in chiral systems at finite temperature. Similar to the normal Hall effect, we find that an axial Hall current is generated in the presence of the electromagnetic fields along with an axial chemical potential, which may be dubbed as the "chiral Hall effect"(CHE). The CHE is related to the interactions of chiral fermions and exists with the a nonzero axial chemical potential. We argue that the CHE could lead to nontrivial charge distributions at different rapidity in asymmetric heavy ion collisions. Moreover, we study the chiral electric waves(CEW) led by the fluctuations of the vector and axial chemical potentials along with the chiral electric separation effect(CESE), where a density wave propagates along the applied electric field. Combining with the normal/chiral Hall effects, the fluctuations of chemical potentials thus result in Hall density waves. The Hall density waves may survive even at zero chemical potentials and become non-dissipative. We further study the transport coefficients including the Hall conductivities, damping times, wave velocities, and diffusion constants of CEW in a strongly coupled plasma via the AdS/CFT correspondence.