Chiral liquids

¹ Max-Planck Institut fuer Physik, Foehringer Ring 6, Muenchen, Germany
² Institute of Theoretical and Exprimental Physics, B. Cheremushkinskaya, 25, Moscow
³ School of Biomedicine, Far Eastern Federal University, Sukhanova str 8, Vladivostok 690950, Russia

^a e-mail: vzakharov@itep.ru

Published online: 29 May 2015

Abstract

We review briefly properties of chiral liquids, or liquids with massless fermionic constituents. We concentrate on three effects, namely, the low ratio of viscosity η to entropy density s, chiral magnetic and vortical effects. We sketch standard derivations of these effects in the hydrodynamic approximation and then concentrate on possibile unifying approach which is based on consideration of the (anomalously) conserved axial current. The point is that the conservation of chirality is specific for the microscopic, field-theoretic description of massless fermions and their interactions. On the macroscopic side, the standard hydrodynamic equations are not consistent, generally speaking, with conservation of a helical macroscopic motion. Imposing extra constraints on the hydrodynamics might resolve this “clash-of-symmetries” paradox.