Effective actions for anomalous hydrodynamics

Haehl, Felix M.; Loganayagam, R.; Rangamani, Mukund

Abstract

We argue that an effective field theory of local fluid elements captures the constraints on hydrodynamic transport stemming from the presence of quantum anomalies in the underlying microscopic theory. Focussing on global current anomalies for an arbitrary flavour group, we derive the anomalous constitutive relations in arbitrary even dimensions. We demonstrate that our results agree with the constraints on anomaly governed transport derived hitherto using a local version of the second law of thermodynamics. The construction crucially uses the anomaly inflow mechanism and involves a novel thermofield double construction. In particular, we show that the anomalous Ward identities necessitate non-trivial interaction between the two parts of the Schwinger-Keldysh contour.

Citation

Haehl, F. M., Loganayagam, R., & Rangamani, M. (2014). Effective actions for anomalous hydrodynamics. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2014(3), Article 034. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep03%282014%29034

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 4, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Mar 5, 2014
• Publication Date: Mar 5, 2014
• Deposit Date: Mar 29, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 31, 2014
• Journal: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Print ISSN: 1126-6708
• Publisher: Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2014
• Issue: 3
• Article Number: 034
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep03%282014%29034
• Keywords: Gauge-gravity correspondence, Chern-Simons Theories, Anomalies in Field and String Theories.