Chiral Kinetic Theory Research Articles

Lorentz-violating extension of Wigner function formalism and chiral kinetic theory

The quantum kinetic equation for the gauge-invariant Wigner function, constructed from spinor fields that obey the Dirac equation modified by CPT and Lorentz symmetry-violating terms, is presented. The equations for the components of the Wigner function in the Clifford algebra basis are accomplished. Focusing on the massless case, an extended semiclassical chiral kinetic theory in the presence of external electromagnetic fields is developed. We calculate the chiral currents and establish the anomalous magnetic and separation effects in a Lorentz-violating background. The chiral anomaly within the context of extended quantum electrodynamics is elucidated. Finally, we derive the semiclassical Lorentz-violating extended chiral transport equation. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Chiral kinetic theory with self-energy corrections and neutrino spin Hall effect

We systematically derive the chiral kinetic theory for chiral fermions with collisions, including the self-energy corrections, from quantum field theories. We find that the Wigner functions and chiral kinetic equations receive both the classical and quantum corrections from the self-energies and their spacetime gradients. We also apply this formalism to study nonequilibrium neutrino transport due to the interaction with thermalized electrons and nucleons, as realized in core-collapse supernovae. We derive neutrino currents along magnetic fields and neutrino spin Hall effect induced by the density gradient at first order in the Fermi constant GF for anisotropic neutrino distributions. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Lorentz invariance violation and the CPT -odd electromagnetic response of a tilted anisotropic Weyl semimetal

We derive the electromagnetic response of a particular fermionic sector in the minimal QED contribution to the Standard Model Extension (SME), which can be physically realized in terms of a model describing a tilted and anisotropic Weyl semimetal (WSM). The contact is made through the identification of the Dirac-like Hamiltonian resulting from the SME with that corresponding to the WSM in the linearized tight-binding approximation. We first calculate the effective action by computing the nonperturbative vacuum polarization tensor using thermal field theory techniques, focusing upon the corrections at finite chemical potential and zero temperature. Next, we confirm our results by a direct calculation of the anomalous Hall current within a chiral kinetic theory approach. In an ideal Dirac cone picture of the WSM (isotropic and nontilted) such response is known to be governed by axion electrodynamics, with the space-time dependent axion angle Θ(r,t)=2(b·r−b0t), being 2b and 2b0 the separation of the Weyl nodes in momentum and energy, respectively. In this paper we demonstrate that the node tilting and the anisotropies induce novel corrections at a finite density which however preserve the structure of the axionic field theory. We apply our results to the ideal Weyl semimetal EuCd2As2 and to the highly anisotropic and tilted monopnictide TaAs. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Challenges in solving chiral hydrodynamics

We prove that ideal chiral hydrodynamics, as derived from chiral kinetic theory, is acausal and its initial-value problem is ill posed, both in the linearized case around a local equilibrium solution and also in the full nonlinear regime. Therefore, such theory cannot be used to determine how the chiral anomaly affects the hydrodynamic evolution. We show that these fundamental issues can be fixed by using different definitions (frames) for the hydrodynamic fields. This leads to a causal theory of ideal chiral hydrodynamics where the vorticity strength is constrained by the coefficient that encodes the anomaly.

Chiral kinetic theory in the presence of dark photon

Finding signatures of dark matter in transport characteristics of solids would be an important step on the road to detect this illusive component of the mass of our Universe. This is especially important and timely as the experiments designed to directly detect dark matter particles continue to provide negative results. As a first step in this direction we consider topologically nontrivial Weyl or Dirac semimetals and derive the modified kinetic equation taking into account two coupled $U(1)$-gauge fields, one being the standard Maxwell electromagnetic field and other corresponding to the dark sector. The resulting Boltzmann kinetic equation is modified by the Berry curvature which couples to both visible and dark sector gauge fields. It was revealed that the dark sector induces modifications of transport coefficients due to the appearance of coupling constant between gauge fields and dark sector magnetic field.

Dynamical chiral magnetic current and instability in Weyl semimetals

Weyl semimetals realize massless relativistic fermions with two Weyl nodes separated in energy and momentum space, whose low-energy physics is described by Dirac fermions with an axial gauge constant. Here, we study their electromagnetic linear responses based on the effective field theory and on the chiral kinetic theory. Although the static chiral magnetic effect is canceled by the Chern-Simons current under the Pauli-Villars regularization, a dynamical magnetic field is found capable of driving an electric current along its direction, with the total transported charge being independent of temperature and chemical potential for a uniform field. We also incorporate dissipation in the relaxation-time approximation and study collective excitations coupled with Maxwell electromagnetic fields when Weyl node populations deviate from equilibrium. Their dispersion relations at low frequency and long wavelength are determined only by electric, chiral magnetic, and anomalous Hall conductivities, which predict unstable modes leading to anisotropic generation of electromagnetic waves oriented to the direction of Weyl node separation.

Non-Abelian chiral kinetic equations in the Cartan-Weyl basis

<sec>Non-Abelian gauge field is the fundamental element of the standard model. Non-Abelian chiral kinetic theory can be used to describe how the chiral fermions in standard model transport in a non-equilibrium system. </sec><sec>In our previous work, we decomposed the non-Abelian chiral kinetic equations into color singlet and multiplet in the <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$SU(N)$\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M1.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M1.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula> color space. In this formalism, the chiral kinetic equations preserve the gauge symmetry in a very apparent way. However, sometimes we need to describe the microscopic process of the specific color degree, e.g. the color connection in the hadronization stage. In order to describe such a process, it will be more convenient to decompose the non-Abelian chiral kinetic equations in the Cartan-Weyl basis. </sec><sec>In this work, we choose the matrix elements of the Wigner function in fundamental representation of color space as the direct variables and decompose the gauge field or strength tensor field in the Cartan-Weyl basis. By using the covariant gradient expansion, we decompose the non-Abelian chiral kinetic equations into the coupled kinetic equations for diagonal distribution function and non-diagonal distribution function up to the first order. When only diagonal elements exist in the gauge field with non-diagonal elements and diagonal elements decoupled, the non-Ableian chiral kinetic equation will be reduced to the form in the Abelian case. When the non-diagonal elements of the gauge field are present, the kinetic equations are totally tangled between diagonal distribution function and non-diagonal distribution function. Especially, the <inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$0$\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M2.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M2.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula>th-order non-diagonal distribution function could induce the <inline-formula><tex-math id="M3">\begin{document}$1$\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M3.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M3.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula>st-order diagonal Wigner function, and the <inline-formula><tex-math id="M4">\begin{document}$0$\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M4.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M4.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula>th-order diagonal distribution function could also induce the <inline-formula><tex-math id="M5">\begin{document}$1$\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M5.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20222471_M5.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula>st-order non-diagonal Wigner function. </sec>

Two-point functions from chiral kinetic theory in magnetized plasma

We study the two-point functions from chiral kinetic theory which characterize the response to perturbative vector and axial gauge fields in magnetized chiral plasma. In the lowest Landau level approximation, the solution of chiral kinetic equations gives density waves of electric and axial charges, which contain chiral magnetic wave implied by the axial anomaly and magnetic field. We then obtain the constitutive relations for covariant currents and stress tensor that involving the density waves. By considering the difference between consistent and covariant anomalies explicitly, the correlators of consistent currents and stress tensor satisfy derivative symmetry, and therefore allow an effective action for the perturbative gauge fields as the generating functional of the correlators. We also verify the derivative symmetry of the correlators agrees with the Onsager relations.

Chiral Anomaly in Non-Relativistic Systems: Berry Curvature and Chiral Kinetic Theory

Chiral anomaly and the novel quantum phenomena it induces have been widely studied for Dirac and Weyl fermions. In most typical cases, the Lorentz covariance is assumed and thus the linear dispersion relations are maintained. However, in realistic materials, such as Dirac and Weyl semimetals, the nonlinear dispersion relations appear naturally. We develop a kinetic framework to study the chiral anomaly for Weyl fermions with nonlinear dispersions using the methods of Wigner function and semi-classical equations of motion. In this framework, the chiral anomaly is sourced by Berry monopoles in momentum space and could be enhanced or suppressed due to the windings around the Berry monopoles. Our results can help understand the chiral anomaly-induced transport phenomena in non-relativistic systems.

Quantum Kinetic Equation for Fermionic Fluids and Chiral Kinetic Theory

We first review how one can establish the quantum kinetic equation for fluids of spin-1/2 particles. Then we present the construction of the semiclassical relativistic chiral kinetic equation of the fluid in the presence of the external electromagnetic fields. We derive the resulting nonrelativistic chiral kinetic theory. We calculated the particle number current density and showed that chiral effects are correctly generated. Moreover, it satisfies the anomalous continuity equation.

Reexamination of local spin polarization beyond global equilibrium in relativistic heavy ion collisions

We study local spin polarization in the relativistic hydrodynamic model. Generalizing the Wigner functions previously obtained from chiral kinetic theory by Y. Hidaka et al. [Phys. Rev. D 97, 016004 (2018)] to the massive case, we present the possible contributions up to the order of $\hbar$ from thermal vorticity, shear viscous tensor, other terms associated with the temperature and chemical-potential gradients, and electromagnetic fields to the local spin polarization. We then implement the (3+1)-dimensional viscous hydrodynamic model to study the spin polarizations from these sources with a small chemical potential and ignorance of electromagnetic fields by adopting an equation of state different from those in other recent studies. Although the shear correction alone upon the local polarization results in a sign and azimuthal-angle dependence more consistent with experimental observations, as also discovered in other recent studies, it is mostly suppressed by the contributions from thermal vorticity and other terms that yield an opposite trend. It is found that the total local spin polarization can be very sensitive to the equation of states, the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density, and the freeze-out temperature.

Chiral kinetic theory of anomalous transport induced by torsion

In Weyl semimetals subjected to torsion, there are two different kinds of chirality: i) the (coordinate-space) shape of the twisted crystal is chiral, and ii) the momentum space contains chiral quasi-particles. Here we construct a general kinetic theory of anomalous transport using the phase space (coordinate and momentum spaces combined) Berry curvature induced by torsion in Weyl systems. We describe how torsion generates the chiral chemical potential, and thus leads to the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) in the presence of a background magnetic field. We propose to measure the CME current induced by the torsion as a way to detect the anomalous coupling between the coordinate-space and momentum-space chiralities.

Magneto-vortical effect in strong magnetic field

We develop covariant chiral kinetic theory with Landau level basis. We use it to investigate a magnetized plasma with a transverse electric field and a steady vorticity as perturbations. After taking into account vacuum shift in the latter case, we find the resulting current and stress tensor in both cases can be matched consistently with constitutive equations of magnetohydrodynamics. We find the solution in the vorticity case contains both shifts in temperature and chemical potential as well as excitations of the lowest Landau level states. The solution gives rise to an vector charge density and axial current density. The vacuum parts coming from both shifts and excitations agree with previous studies and the medium parts coming entirely from excitations leads to a new contribution to vector charge and axial current density consistent with standard chiral vortical effect.

Chiral kinetic theory with small mass corrections and quantum coherent states

We study the effect of a small fermion mass in the formulation of the on-shell effective field theory (OSEFT). This is our starting point to derive small mass corrections to the chiral kinetic theory. In the massless case, only four Wigner functions are needed to describe positive and negative energy fermions of left and right chirality, corresponding to the vectorial components of a fermionic two-point Green's function. As soon as mass corrections are introduced, tensorial components are also needed, while the scalar components strictly vanish in the OSEFT. The tensorial components are conveniently parametrized in the so-called spin coherent functions, which describe quantum coherent mixtures of left-right and right-left chiral fermions, of either positive or negative energy. We show that, up to second order in the energy expansion, vectorial and tensorial components are decoupled, and obey the same dispersion law and transport equation, depending on their respective chirality. We study the mass modifications of the reparametrization invariance of the OSEFT, and check that vector and tensorial components are related by the associated symmetry transformations. We study how the macroscopic properties of the system are described in terms of the whole set of Wigner functions, and check that our framework allows to account for the mass modifications to the chiral anomaly equation.

Polarization rotation of chiral fermions in vortical fluid

The rotation of polarization occurs for light interacting with chiral materials. It requires the light states with opposite chiralities interact differently with the materials. We demonstrate analogous rotation of polarization also exists for chiral fermions interacting with quantum electrodynamics plasma with vorticity using chiral kinetic theory. We find that the rotation of polarization is perpendicular both to vorticity and fermion momentum. The effect also exists for chiral fermions in quantum chromodynamics plasma with vorticity. It could lead to generation of a vector current when the probe fermions contain momentum anisotropy.

Second order chiral kinetic theory under gravity and antiparallel charge-energy flow

We derive the chiral kinetic theory under the presence of a gravitational Riemann curvature. It is well-known that in the chiral kinetic theory there inevitably appears a redundant ambiguous vector corresponding to the choice of the Lorentz frame. We reveal that on top of this conventional frame choosing vector, higher-order quantum correction to the chiral kinetic theory brings an additional degrees of freedom to specify the distribution function. Based on this framework, we derive new types of fermionic transport, that is, the charge current and energy-momentum tensor induced by the gravitational Riemann curvature. Such novel phenomena arise not only under genuine gravity but also in a (pseudo-)relativistic fluid, for which inhomogeneous vorticity or temperature are effectively represented by spacetime metric tensor. It is especially found that the charge and energy currents are antiparallelly induced by an inhomogeneous fluid vorticity (more generally, by the Ricci tensor R0i), as a consequence of the spin-curvature coupling. We also briefly discuss possible applications to Weyl/Dirac semimetals and heavy-ion collision experiments.

Zilch vortical effect for fermions

We consider the notion of zilch current that was recently discussed in the literature as an alternative helicity measure for photons. Developing this idea, we suggest the generalization of the zilch for the systems of fermions. We start with the definition of the photonic zilch current in chiral kinetic theory framework and work out field-theoretical definition of the fermionic zilch using the Wigner function formalism. This object has similar properties to the photonic zilch and is conserved in the non-interacting theory. We also show that, in full analogy with a case of photons, the fermionic zilch acquires a non-trivial contribution due to the medium rotation - zilch vortical effect (ZVE) for fermions. Combined with a previously studied ZVE for photons, these results form a wider set of chiral effects parameterized by the spin of the particles and the spin of the current. We briefly discuss the origin of the ZVE, its possible relation to the anomalies in the underlying microscopic theory and possible application for studying the spin polarization in chiral media.

From chiral kinetic theory to relativistic viscous spin hydrodynamics

In this work, we start with chiral kinetic theory and construct the spin hydrodynamic framework for a chiral spinor system. Using the 14-moment expansion formalism, we obtain the equations of motion of second-order dissipative relativistic fluid dynamics with non-trivial spin polarization density. In a chiral spinor system, the spin alignment effect could be treated in the same framework as the Chiral Vortical Effect (CVE). However, the quantum corrections due to fluid vorticity induce not only CVE terms in the vector/axial charge currents but also corrections to the stress tensor. In this framework, viscous corrections to the hadron spin polarization are self-consistently obtained, which will be important for the precise prediction of the polarization rate for the observed hadrons, e.g. $\Lambda$-hyperon.

Wigner functions and quantum kinetic theory of polarized photons

We derive the Wigner functions of polarized photons in the Coulomb gauge with the ħ expansion applied to quantum field theory, and identify side-jump effects for massless photons. We also discuss the photonic chiral vortical effect for the Chern-Simons current and zilch vortical effect for the zilch current in local thermal equilibrium as a consistency check for our formalism. The results are found to be in agreement with those obtained from different approaches. Moreover, using the real-time formalism, we construct the quantum kinetic theory (QKT) for polarized photons. By further adopting a specific power counting scheme for the distribution functions, we provide a more succinct form of an effective QKT. This photonic QKT involves quantum corrections associated with self-energy gradients in the collision term, which are analogous to the side-jump corrections pertinent to spin-orbit interactions in the chiral kinetic theory for massless fermions. The same theoretical framework can also be directly applied to weakly coupled gluons in the absence of background color fields.

From Chiral Kinetic Theory To Spin Hydrodynamics

The total angular momentum is conserved in the evolution of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in heavy-ion collision, and consists of two sectors: the orbital angular momentum (OAM) caused by kinetic motion, and the spin, an intrinsic degree of freedom of quarks and gluons. Microscopic scattering processes allow the conversion between these two components, hence the spin density could eventually have non-trivial influence on the QGP evolution. A hydrodynamic theory, with the spin polarization effect properly taken into account, is required to quantitatively study the polarization rate for observed hadrons, e.g. the Λ-hyperon. In this work, we start with chiral kinetic theory and construct the spin hydrodynamic framework for a chiral spinor system. We obtain the equations of motion of second-order dissipative relativistic fluid dynamics with non-trivial spin polarization density.