Chiral Electric Separation Effect Research Articles

Chiral electric separation effect in Weyl semimetals

We study the chiral electric separation effect (CESE) in Weyl semimetals (WSM). Within the model based on the kinetic equation we show that there is a non-zero chirality current in external electric and magnetic fields. We distinguish longitudinal, in-plane transverse, Hall, and anomalous Hall components of the CESE. It is shown that the first two components are quadratic in electric field and linear in magnetic field, while the Hall component is quadratic in both the electric and magnetic fields. All three are due to the chiral anomaly. In WSMs the chirality current can be associated with the spin current, which can be experimentally observed.

Holographic charged fluid with chiral electric separation effect

Hydrodynamics with both vector and axial currents is under study within a holographic model, consisting of canonical U(1)V × U(1)A gauge fields in an asymptotically AdS5 black brane. When gravitational back-reaction is taken into account, the chiral electric separation effect (CESE), namely the generation of an axial current as the response to an external electric field, is realized naturally. Via fluid/gravity correspondence, all the first order transport coefficients in the hydrodynamic constitutive relations are evaluated analytically: they are functions of vector chemical potential μ, axial chemical potential μ5 and the fluid’s temperature T . Apart from the proportionality factor μμ5, the CESE conductivity is found to be dependent on the dimensionless quantities μ/T and μ5/T nontrivially. As a complementary study, frequency-dependent transport phenomena are revealed through linear response analysis, demonstrating perfect agreement with the results obtained from fluid/gravity correspondence.

Consistent Chiral Kinetic Theory in Weyl Materials: Chiral Magnetic Plasmons.

We argue that the correct definition of the electric current in the chiral kinetic theory for Weyl materials should include the Chern-Simons contribution that makes the theory consistent with the local conservation of the electric charge in electromagnetic and strain-induced pseudoelectromagnetic fields. By making use of such a kinetic theory, we study the plasma frequencies of collective modes in Weyl materials in constant magnetic and pseudomagnetic fields, taking into account the effects of dynamical electromagnetism. We show that the collective modes are chiral plasmons. While the plasma frequency of the longitudinal collective mode coincides with the Langmuir one, this mode is unusual because it is characterized not only by oscillations of the electric current density, but also by oscillations of the chiral current density. The latter are triggered by a dynamical version of the chiral electric separation effect. We also find that the plasma frequencies of the transverse modes split up in a magnetic field. This finding suggests an efficient means of extracting the chiral shift parameter from the measurement of the plasma frequencies in Weyl materials.

Chiral electric field in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and at the CERN Large Hadron Collider**Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (11375069, 11435054, 11075061, 11221504) and Key Laboratory Foundation of Quark and Lepton Physics (Hua-Zhong Normal University)(QLPL2014P01)

It has been proposed that electric fields may lead to chiral separation in quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This is called the chiral electric separation effect. The strong electromagnetic field and the QCD vacuum can both be completely produced in off-central nuclear-nuclear collision. We use the Woods-Saxon nucleon distribution to calculate the electric field distributions of off-central collisions. The chiral electric field spatial distribution at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energy regions are systematically studied in this paper. The dependence of the electric field produced by the thermal quark in the central position with different impact parameters on the proper time with different collision energies in the RHIC and LHC energy regions are studied in this paper.

Possible observables for the chiral electric separation effect in Cu + Au collisions

The quark-gluon plasma (QGP) generated in relativistic heavy-ion collisions could be locally parity-odd. In parity-odd QGP, the electric field may induce a chiral current which is called the chiral electric separation effect (CESE). We propose two possible observables for CESE in Cu + Au collisions: The first one is the correlation $\zeta_{\alpha\beta}=\langle \cos[2(\phi_\alpha+\phi_\beta-2\Psi_{\rm RP})]\rangle$; the second one is the charge-dependent event-plane angle $\Psi^{q}_2$ with $q=\pm$ being charge. Nonzero $\Delta\zeta=\zeta_{opp}-\zeta_{same}$ and $\Delta\Psi=\langle|\Psi_2^+-\Psi_2^-|\rangle$ may signal the CESE in Cu + Au collisions. Within a multiphase transport model, we study how the final state interaction affects these observables. We find that the correlation $\gamma_{\alpha\beta}=\langle\cos(\phi_{\alpha}+\phi_{\beta}-\Psi_{\rm RP})\rangle$ is sensitive to the out-of-plane charge separation caused by the chiral magnetic effect and to the in-plane charge separation caused by the in-plane electric field, but it is not sensitive to the CESE. On the other hand, $\Delta\zeta$ and $\Delta\Psi$ are sensitive to the CESE. Therefore, we suggest that the future experiments measure the above observables in Cu+Au collisions in order to disentangle different chiral and charge separation mechanisms.

Anomalous transport effects and possible environmental symmetry ‘violation’ in heavy-ion collisions

The heavy-ion collision provides a unique many-body environment where local domains of strongly interacting chiral medium may occur and in a sense allow environmental symmetry ‘violation’ phenomena. For example, certain anomalous transport processes, forbidden in usual medium, become possible in such domains. We briefly review recent progress in both the theoretical understanding and experimental search of various anomalous transport effects (such as the chiral magnetic effect, chiral separation effect, chiral electric separation effect, chiral electric /magnetic waves, etc.) in the hot QCD fluid formed by such collisions.

Chiral electric separation effect in the quark-gluon plasma

In this paper we introduce and compute a new transport coefficient for the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at very high temperature. This new coefficient $\sigma_{\chi e}$, the CESE (Chiral Electric Separation Effect) conductivity, quantifies the amount of axial current $\vec J_A$ that is generated in response to an externally applied electric field $e\vec E$: $\vec J_A = \sigma_{\chi e} (e\vec E)$. Starting with rather general argument in the kinetic theory framework, we show how a characteristic structure $\sigma_{\chi e}\propto \mu \mu_5$ emerges, which also indicates the CESE as an anomalous transport effect occurring only in a parity-odd environment with nonzero axial charge density $\mu_5\neq 0$. Using the Hard-Thermal-Loop framework the CESE conductivity for the QGP is found to be $\sigma_{\chi e} = (\#) T\frac{{\rm Tr}_{\rm f}Q_eQ_A}{g^4\ln(1/g)} \frac{\mu\mu_5}{T^2}$ to the leading-log accuracy with the numerical constant (#) depending on favor content, e.g. (#)$=14.5163$ for $u,d$ light flavors.

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.

Holographic chiral electric separation effect

We investigate the chiral electric separation effect, where an axial current is induced by an electric field in the presence of both vector and axial chemical potentials, in a strongly coupled plasma via the Sakai-Sugimoto model with an $U(1)_R\times U(1)_L$ symmetry. By introducing different chemical potentials in $U(1)_R$ and $U(1)_L$ sectors, we compute the axial direct current (DC) conductivity stemming from the chiral current and the normal DC conductivity. We find that the axial conductivity is approximately proportional to the product of the axial and vector chemical potentials for arbitrary magnitudes of the chemical potentials. We also evaluate the axial alternating current (AC) conductivity induced by a frequency-dependent electric field, where the oscillatory behavior with respect to the frequency is observed.

Axial current generation from electric field: chiral electric separation effect.

We study a relativistic plasma containing charged chiral fermions in an external electric field. We show that with the presence of both vector and axial charge densities, the electric field can induce an axial current along its direction and thus cause chirality separation. We call it the chiral electric separation effect (CESE). On a very general basis, we argue that the strength of CESE is proportional to μ(V)μ(A) with μ(V) and μ(A) the chemical potentials for vector charge and axial charge. We then explicitly calculate this CESE conductivity coefficient in thermal QED at leading-log order. The CESE can manifest a new gapless wave mode propagating along the electric field. Potential observable effects of CESE in heavy-ion collisions are also discussed.