Chiral Plasma Research Articles

Higher-form symmetry and chiral transport in real-time Abelian lattice gauge theory

We study classical lattice simulations of theories of electrodynamics coupled to charged matter at finite temperature, interpreting them using the higher-form symmetry formulation of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). We compute transport coefficients using classical Kubo formulas on the lattice and show that the properties of the simulated plasma are in complete agreement with the predictions from effective field theories. In particular, the higher-form formulation allows us to understand from hydrodynamic considerations the relaxation rate of axial charge in the chiral plasma observed in previous simulations. A key point is that the resistivity of the plasma – defined in terms of Kubo formulas for the electric field in the 1-form formulation of MHD – remains a well-defined and predictive quantity at strong electromagnetic coupling. However, the Kubo formulas used to define the conventional conductivity vanish at low frequencies due to electrodynamic fluctuations, and thus the concept of the conductivity of a gauged electric current must be interpreted with care.

Derivatization-free determination of chiral plasma pharmacokinetics of MDMA and its enantiomers

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is an entactogen with therapeutic potential. The two enantiomers of MDMA differ regarding their pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics but the chiral pharmacology of MDMA needs further study in clinical trials. Here, an achiral and an enantioselective high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method for the quantification of MDMA and its psychoactive phase I metabolite 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA) in human plasma were developed and validated. The analytes were detected by positive electrospray ionization followed by multiple reaction monitoring. The calibration range was 0.5–500 ng/mL for the achiral analysis of both analytes, 0.5–1,000 ng/mL for chiral MDMA analysis, and 1–1,000 ng/mL for chiral MDA analysis. Accuracy, precision, selectivity, and sensitivity of both bioanalytical methods were in accordance with regulatory guidelines. Furthermore, accuracy and precision of the enantioselective method were maintained when racemic calibrations were used to measure quality control samples containing only one of the enantiomers. Likewise, enantiomeric calibrations could be used to reliably quantify enantiomers in racemic samples. The achiral and enantioselective methods were employed to assess pharmacokinetic parameters in clinical study participants treated with racemic MDMA or one of its enantiomers. The pharmacokinetic parameters assessed with both bioanalytical methods were comparable. In conclusion, the enantioselective method is useful for the simultaneous quantification of both enantiomers in subjects treated with racemic MDMA. However, as MDMA and MDA do not undergo chiral inversion, enantioselective separation is not necessary in subjects treated with only one of the enantiomers.

Chiral magnetic waves in strongly coupled Weyl semimetals

Propagating chiral magnetic waves (CMW) are expected to exist in chiral plasmas due to the interplay between the chiral magnetic and chiral separation effects induced by the presence of a chiral anomaly. Unfortunately, it was pointed out that, because of the effects of electric conductivity and dissipation, CMW are overdamped and therefore their signatures are unlikely to be seen in heavy-ion collision experiments and in the quark gluon plasma. Nonetheless, the chiral anomaly plays a fundamental role in Weyl semimetals and their anomalous transport properties as well. Hence, CMW could be potentially observed in topological semimetals using table-top experiments. By using a holographic model for strongly coupled Weyl semimetals, we investigate in detail the nature of CMW in presence of Coulomb interactions and axial charge relaxation and estimate whether, and in which regimes, CMW could be observed as underdamped collective excitations in topological materials.

Anomalous strangeness transport

Nondissipative transport of strangeness is studied in a chiral hadronic plasma with three flavors. In the phase in which chiral symmetry is preserved, strangeness transport is found to be driven by both an external magnetic field and fluid vorticity. As for the constitutive relations of the baryon and electromagnetic currents, they exhibit vortical terms proportional to the strangeness chemical potential. In the superfluid phase, transverse nondissipative diffusion of the baryon, electromagnetic, and strangeness charges is found, which survives in the limit of vanishing chiral imbalance and mixes in a fashion similar to standard dissipative diffusion in quark-gluon plasma.

Sphaleron damping and effects on normal and anomalous charge transport in high-temperature QCD plasmas

We modify the hydrodynamic equations of a relativistic chiral plasma to account for dissipative effects due to QCD sphaleron transitions. By analyzing the linearized hydrodynamic equations, we show that sphaleron transitions lead to nontrivial effects on vector and axial charge transport phenomena in the presence of a magnetic field. Notably, dissipative effects of sphaleron transitions lead to the emergence of a wavenumber threshold that characterizes the onset of Chiral Magnetic Waves. Sphaleron damping also significantly impacts the time evolution of both vector and axial charge perturbations in the presence of a magnetic field. We further investigate the dependence of charge separation on the rate of sphaleron transitions, which may have implications for the experimental search for the Chiral Magnetic Effect in heavy ion collisions.

Specific detection of CA242 by antibody-modified chiral symmetric double “N” metasurface biosensor

In this work, a biosensor based on Fano resonance metasurface is proposed for the specific detection of CA242 which is a typical marker of pancreatic cancer. The biosensor consists of a chiral symmetric plasma double “N” structure, which utilises coherent coupling of bright and dark modes to generate Fano resonance, achieving suppression of radiation loss, concentrating and storing energy more efficiently in the structure, and contributing to increased sensitivity to changes in ambient refractive index, resulting in a sensitivity of the sensor of up to 842.8 nm /RIU. After a series of antibody functionalization modifications, the metasurface has become an immune biosensor that can specifically detect the tumor marker CA242 of pancreatic cancer. The detection of mixed and single antigen solutions with different concentrations has verified the high sensitivity, high specificity, and high linear relationship of the biosensor to CA242, and the detection limit is as low as 0.0692 ng/mL. It is superior to other common methods and breaks the traditional disadvantages of lower detection accuracy and greater damage in tumour detection methods. The detection of the wavelength shift of localized surface plasmon resonance in plasma metasurface has been successfully applied to the highly sensitive detection of tumor markers. This study demonstrates the sensitivity and maneuverability of the chiral symmetric double “N” plasmonic metasurface biosensor, suggesting the potential application of metamaterials in biosensing based on environmental refractive index changes.

Chiral Instabilities and the Fate of Chirality Imbalance in Non-Abelian Plasmas.

We present a microscopic study of chiral plasma instabilities and axial charge transfer in non-Abelian plasmas with a strong gauge-matter coupling g^{2}N_{f}=64, by performing 3+1D real-time classical-statistical lattice simulation with dynamical fermions. We explicitly demonstrate for the first time that-unlike in an Abelian plasma-the transfer of chirality from the matter sector to the gauge fields occurs predominantly due to topological sphaleron transitions. We elaborate on the similiarities and differences of the axial charge dynamics in cold Abelian U(1) and non-Abelian SU(2) plasmas, and comment on the implications of our findings for the study of anomalous transport phenomena, such as the chiral magnetic effect in QCD matter.

Baryogenesis from decaying magnetic helicity in axiogenesis

Generating axion dark matter through the kinetic misalignment mechanism implies the generation of large asymmetries for Standard Model fermions in the early universe. Even if these asymmetries are washed out at later times, they can trigger a chiral plasma instability in the early universe. Similarly, a direct coupling of the axion with the hypercharge gauge field can trigger a tachyonic instability. These instabilities produce helical magnetic fields, which are preserved until the electroweak phase transition. At the electroweak phase transition, these become a source of baryon asymmetry, which can be much more efficient than the original axiogenesis proposal. We discuss constraints on axion dark matter production from the overproduction of the baryon asymmetry as well as a minimal, albeit fine-tuned setup, where both the correct dark matter abundance and baryon asymmetry can be achieved. For a given axion decay constant, this leads to a sharp prediction for the mass of the radial direction of the Peccei Quinn field, which is a soft mass scale in supersymmetric theories.

Single-Layer Transmissive Chiral Plasma Metasurface with High Circular Polarization Extinction Ratio in Visible Wavelength.

Chiral metamaterials are extensively applied in the fields of photoelectric detection, biomedical diagnostics and micro-nano polarization imaging. Currently, single-layer chiral metamaterials are unfortunately limited by several issues, such as a weaker circular polarization extinction ratio and circular polarization transmittance difference. To tackle these issues, a single-layer transmissive chiral plasma metasurface (SCPMs) suitable for visible wavelength is proposed in this paper. Its basic unit is composed of double orthogonal rectangular slots and a spatial π/4 inclined arrangement of the rectangular slot to constitute a chiral structure. Each rectangular slot structure has characteristics that enable the SCPMs to easily achieve a high circular polarization extinction ratio and strong circular polarization transmittance difference. Both the circular polarization extinction ratio and circular polarization transmittance difference of the SCPMs reach over 1000 and 0.28 at a wavelength of 532 nm, respectively. In addition, the SCPMs is fabricated via the thermally evaporated deposition technique and focused ion beam system. This compact structure coupled with a simple process and excellent properties enhances its applicability for the control and detection of polarization, especially during integration with linear polarizers, to achieve the fabrication of a division-of-focal-plane full-Stokes polarimeter.

Wash-in leptogenesis after axion inflation

CP violation and the violation of baryon-minus-lepton number B−L do not necessarily have to occur simultaneously in order to accomplish successful leptogenesis. Instead, it suffices if new CP-violating interactions at high energies result in primordial charge asymmetries, which are then reprocessed into a nonvanishing B−L asymmetry by right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) at lower energies. In this paper, we study this novel mechanism known as wash-in leptogenesis, utilizing axion inflation as the source of high-scale CP violation. We specifically consider axion inflation coupled to the Standard Model hypercharge sector, which results in the dual production of hypermagnetic helicity and fermionic charge asymmetries. Although the survival of these charges is endangered by sphaleron processes, magnetic diffusion, and the chiral plasma instability, we find a large range of viable scenarios. We consistently account for RHN flavor effects and coherence among the Standard Model lepton flavors across a wide range of RHN masses. We find a lower bound of 105···9 GeV on the mass of the lightest RHN involved in wash-in leptogenesis, depending on the onset of turbulence in the chiral plasma and the Hubble scale of inflation. Our model is representative of a broader class of new leptogenesis scenarios and suggests interesting observational signatures with regard to intergalactic magnetic fields, primordial black holes, and gravitational waves.

Effect of external magnetic field on helix plasma plume

<sec>Electric phenomena and magnetic phenomena are inseparable. The magnetic field affects the ionization balance and spatial distribution of the plasma. A new type of plasma discharges has been found in nitrogen gas under sub atmospheric pressure condition without external magnetic field. Because of its regular helical propagation pattern, it is called helical plasma (HP) plume. Although a great deal of research has been carried out on the key characteristics of the HP plume, the formation mechanism of it remains unclear, which affects its applications in materials and nanotechnology.</sec><sec>By applying magnetic field to HP with different chirality, the regulation behavior of the external magnetic field on HP is studied. It is found that the external magnetic field will make the HP shrink or stretch. With the magnetic field intensity increasing from 0 mT to 200 mT, the left-handed HP plume stretches under the magnetic field of S-pole. Conversely, the left-handed chiral HP plume contracts when the magnetic pole changes to N-pole. However, when the chirality of HP plume is changed to being right-handed by adjusting voltage, phenomenon opposite to the previous one is observed. Moreover, the applied magnetic field also affects the divergence of HP. With the increase of S-pole external magnetic field, the HP plume stretches until the external magnetic field reaches to 80 mT. When the magnetic field intensity is 80 mT, the HP disappears. The plasma in the quartz tube appears in the divergent form. With the magnetic field intensity increasing to 160 mT, the plasma in the form of a helix appears again. Finally, in the process of changing the intensity of the magnetic field, the clarity of the HP plume will also change.</sec><sec>The radial electric field of HP is calculated by electromagnetic wave theory, and the mechanism of the influence of external magnetic field on the behavior of HP is clarified. It is found that the magnetic field force component of Lorentz force is responsible for the external magnetic field regulating the HP behavior. This study lays a theoretical foundation for understanding the motion behavior of HP, which is conducive to the practical applications in the field of materials and nanotechnology.</sec>

Electric Properties of Chiral Plasma Plumes Without External Magnetic Field

Helical and chiral plasma structures are ubiquitous, especially in nuclear fusion devices and space plasmas. However, the spontaneous formation of helical structures has rarely been noticed in non-equilibrium cold plasma jets that have wide applications in biomedicine and material science. Recently the chiral plasma plume without any notable asymmetry has been discovered. Under the specific parameters of pulsed discharges, the plasma bullets that at the beginning propagated in the straight lines spontaneously turn into 3-D helical discharge trajectories. Here, the electromagnetic mechanism for the chiral plasma plumes is clarified by the numerical investigation of the 3-D electromagnetic field. According to the specific standing-wave mode with the periodic poloidal component in simulation, a type of plasma plume which shows the apparent poloidal rotation only at the periodic position of the tube and moves nearly in a straight line at other positions is revealed. These findings are relevant to the development of high-voltage active electromagnetic media for artificial 3-D optical meta-material devices and precise 3-D materials processing involving helical and chiral patterns in diverse fields.

Unstable Nambu-Goldstone modes

Nambu-Goldstone (NG) modes for 0-form and higher-form symmetries can become unstable in the presence of background fields. Examples include the instability of a photon with a time-dependent axion background or with a chirality imbalance, known as the chiral plasma instability, and the instability of a dynamical axion with a background electric field. We show that all these phenomena can be universally described by a symmetry algebra for 0-form and higher-form symmetries. We prove a counting rule for the number of unstable NG modes in terms of correlation functions of broken symmetry generators. Based on our unified description, we further give a simple new example where one of the NG modes associated with the spontaneous 0-form symmetry breaking $U(1) \times U(1) \to \{1\}$ becomes unstable.

Chiral anomalous processes in magnetospheres of pulsars and black holes

We propose that chirally asymmetric plasma can be produced in the gap regions of the magnetospheres of pulsars and black holes. We show that, in the case of supermassive black holes situated in active galactic nuclei, the chiral charge density and the chiral chemical potential are very small and unlikely to have any observable effects. In contrast, the chiral asymmetry produced in the magnetospheres of magnetars can be substantial. It can trigger the chiral plasma instability that, in turn, can lead to observable phenomena in magnetars. In particular, the instability should trigger circularly polarized electromagnetic radiation in a wide window of frequencies, spanning from radio to near-infrared. As such, the produced chiral charge has the potential to affect some features of fast radio bursts.

Chiral plasma instability and inverse cascade from nonequilibrium left-handed neutrinos in core-collapse supernovae

We show that the backreaction of left-handed neutrinos out of equilibrium on the matter sector induces an electric current proportional to a magnetic field even without a chiral imbalance for electrons in core-collapse supernovae. We derive the transport coefficient of this effect based on the recently formulated chiral radiation transport theory for neutrinos. This chiral electric current generates a strong magnetic field via the so-called chiral plasma instability, which could provide a new mechanism for the strong and stable magnetic field of magnetars. We also numerically study the physical origin of the inverse cascade of the magnetic energy in the magnetohydrodynamics including this current. Our results indicate that incorporating the chiral effects of neutrinos would drastically modify the hydrodynamic evolutions of supernovae, which may also be relevant to the explosion dynamics.

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.

Astrophysical chiral dynamos and strain-torsioned Weyl materials

Our goal in this paper is two-fold: First we show that in the absence of four-fermion interactions, from Einstein–Cartan–Maxwell (ECM) anisotropy cosmology, one may derive instabilities in chiral dynamo equations from magnetic perturbations. They are obtained from a model, where the spinning-fluid does not couple directly to the Einstein–Maxwell model. Instead spin fluid enter into the evolution equation of density perturbations. Chiral dynamo equation is obtained from magnetic perturbations in the particular case where the perturbations in the chiral magnetized plasma can be neglected in second order of perturbations. The vanishing of the Nieh–Yan (NY) topological density in this Bianchi type-I model is also investigated. In the second example, use of the magnetic and torsion perturbations are given by the technique of encoding the magnetic perturbations in the metric constrained by teleparallelism. We consider non-uniform chiral chemical potential in the chiral flipping equation in order to obtain the magnetic field dynamo amplification. Dynamo effects are obtained from current perturbations expressed in terms of chiral chemical potential when number density of left-handed chiral particles is approximately zero. The damping found in magnetic field by the end of inflation, may help to explain why so weak galactic dynamo seeds are found at present universe. Furthermore, damping depends upon the strain–torsion relation of the Weyl topological materials. Though in general, torsion does not couple to electromagnetic fields, it influences the magnetic field through strain–torsion pseudo-magnetic potential.

Dynamo chiral plasma instabilities from charges and oscillations driven by torsion fluctuations

Recently, Barrow et al. showed that chaotic dynamical systems may be obtained from small fluctuations of torsion in cosmological plasmas. Following this idea our goal in this paper is to show analytically that torsion fluctuations in primordial plasmas induce chiral fluctuations, magnetic field fluctuations, dynamo plasma instabilities, as well as rapid oscillations in the chiral plasma. These phenomena are important in plasma relaxation to allow for a plasma dynamo instability to induce a lower electric voltage in plasmas. This phenomenon is induced in Minkowskian plasma physics, but to our knowledge it is proved for the first time in Einstein–Cartan sort of cosmology. In cosmological models where torsion gravity and electromagnetic fields are non-minimally coupled, dynamo instability is obtained when conductivity fluctuations are driven by torsion. Moreover, symmetry breaking of plasmas is shown here to be obtained from conductivity torsion fluctuations, which serves to bypass Zeldovich anti-dynamo theorem, inducing a dynamo onset, as shown recently in domain planar walls [L. Garcia de Andrade, Einstein–Cartan spin-polarised nucleons in domain wall dynamos, Ann Phys. (N.Y.) 432 (2021) 168558.]. Moreover, chiral charge fluctuations are shown to be induced by torsion fluctuations. It is shown that chiral charges may vanish, whereas the effective chiral charges may be driven by torsional fluctuations. It is also shown that dynamo electric field induces a magnetic helicity which oscillates and dynamo action is shown to dominate oscillations. This agrees with the results obtained from loop voltage. Chiral effective charges’ fluctuations are derived to be proportional to the product of anisotropic conductivity and magnetic field fluctuations.

Unconventional Weyl exceptional contours in non-Hermitian photonic continua

Unconventional Weyl points with topological charges higher than 1 can transform into various complex unconventional Weyl exceptional contours under non-Hermitian perturbations. However, theoretical studies of these exceptional contours have been limited to tight-binding models. Here, we propose to realize unconventional Weyl exceptional contours in photonic continua—non-Hermitian anisotropic chiral plasma, based on ab initio calculation by Maxwell’s equations. By perturbing in-plane permittivity, an unconventional Weyl point can transform into a quadratic Weyl exceptional ring, a type I Weyl exceptional chain with one chain point, a type II Weyl exceptional chain with two chain points, or other forms. Realistic metamaterials with effective constitutive parameters are proposed to implement these unconventional Weyl exceptional contours. Our work paves a way toward exploration of exotic physics of unconventional Weyl exceptional contours in non-Hermitian topological photonic continua.

Can magnetogenesis driven by dynamo instabilities in chiral fermion plasmas, favor Einstein–Cartan AdS cosmology?

In this letter we show that the magnetic field (MF) bounds induced by Einstein–Cartan–de Sitter (EC) with AdS anti-de Sitter spacetime geometry and fermionic torsion with chiral dynamo plasmas instabilities, with inhomogeneous uniform chiral chemical potential, indicates that there is a possibility, as far as magnetogenesis is concerned, that we may obtain more stringent results within ECAdS gravity, compared with general relativity (GR) limits obtained by Tsagas using torsionless magnetogenesis. Spinorial fermionic source with torsion induces a chiral plasmas oscillation. The time dependent chiral chemical potential, sometimes associated formally with torsion, (de Andrade, 2018), is obtained from chiral flipping equation. The MFs obtained from the present universe ECdS chiral dynamo model, meet the criteria of galactic seed fields with better limits within Tsagas range (Tsagas, 2015) seed galactic magnetic fields for dynamo mechanisms, than the bound obtained by chiral dynamos in torsionless AdS cosmology. Majorana neutrinos are used as spatial components of axial spin-torsion source of dynamo instability from neutrino asymmetry.