We scrutinize the novel chiral transport phenomenon driven by spacetime torsion, namely the chiral torsional effect (CTE). We calculate the torsion-induced chiral currents with finite temperature, density and curvature in the most general torsional gravity theory. The conclusion complements the previous study on the CTE by including curvature and substantiates the relation between the CTE and the Nieh-Yan anomaly. We also analyze the response of chiral torsional current to an external electromagnetic field. The resulting topological current is analogous to that in the axion electrodynamics.
Using the similarity between spacetime torsion and axial gauge couplings, we study torsional contributions to the equilibrium partition function in a stationary background. In the case of a charged fluid minimally coupled to torsion, we spot the existence of linear torsional magnetic and vortical effects, while the axial-vector current and the spin energy potential do not receive corrections in the torsion at linear order. The covariant energy-momentum tensor, on the other hand, does contain terms linear in the torsion tensor. The case of a two-flavor hadronic superfluid is also analyzed, and …
We propose a torsional response raised by lattice dislocation in Weyl semimetals akin to chiral magnetic effect; i.e. a fictitious magnetic field arising from screw or edge dislocation induces charge current. We demonstrate that, in sharp contrast to the usual chiral magnetic effect which vanishes in real solid state materials, the torsional chiral magnetic effect exists even for realistic lattice models, which implies the experimental detection of the effect via SQUID or nonlocal resistivity measurements in Weyl semimetal materials.
When in general geometric backgrounds the metric is accompanied by torsion, the metric conformal properties should correspondingly be followed by analogous torsional conformal properties; however a combined metric torsional conformal structure has never been found which provides a curvature that is both containing metric-torsional degree of freedom and conformally invariant: in this paper we construct such a metric-torsional conformal curvature. We proceed by building the most general action, then deriving the most general system of field equations; we check their consistency by showing that b…
We show that Weyl semimetals exhibit a mixed axial-torsional anomaly in the presence of axial torsion, a concept exclusive of these materials with no known natural fundamental interpretation in terms of the geometry of spacetime. This anomaly implies a nonconservation of the axial current---the difference in current of left- and right-handed chiral fermions---when the torsion of the spacetime in which the Weyl fermions move couples with opposite sign to different chiralities. The anomaly is activated by driving transverse sound waves through a Weyl semimetal with a spatially varying tilted dis…
Torsional degrees of freedom play an important role in modern gravity theories as well as in condensed matter systems where they can be modeled by defects in solids. Here we isolate a class of torsion models that support torsion configurations with a localized, conserved charge that adopts integer values. The charge is topological in nature and the torsional configurations can be thought of as torsional `monopole' solutions. We explore some of the properties of these configurations in gravity models with non-vanishing curvature, and discuss the possible existence of such monopoles in condensed…
Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción（天主教圣婴大学）；Universidad Arturo Prat（阿图罗·普拉特大学）；Politecnico di Torino（都灵理工大学）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)（意大利国家核物理研究所）
Inspired by the duality between gravity and defects in crystals, we study lattice field theory with torsion. The torsion is realized by a line defect of a lattice, namely a dislocation. As the first application, we perform the numerical computation for vector and axial currents induced by a screw dislocation. This current generation is called the chiral torsional effect. We also derive the analytical formula for the chiral torsional effect in the continuum limit.
Based on the supersymmetric quantum mechanical approach, we have systematically studied both the $U\left(1\right)$ gauge anomaly and the diffeomorphism anomaly in Weyl systems with torsion, curvature and external electromagnetic fields. These anomalies relate to the chiral current (or current) non-conservation and chiral energy-momentum (or energy-momentum) non-conservation, respectively, which can be applied to the $^{3}\text{He-A}$ phase, the chiral superconductors and the Weyl semimetals with dislocations and disclinations. In sharp difference with other anomalies, there exist torsional ano…
The existence of topological invariants analogous to Chern/Pontryagin classes for a standard $SO(D)$ or $SU(N)$ connection, but constructed out of the torsion tensor, is discussed. These invariants exhibit many of the features of the Chern/Pontryagin invariants: they can be expressed as integrals over the manifold of local densities and take integer values on compact spaces without boundary; their spectrum is determined by the homotopy groups $π_{D-1}(SO(D))$ and $π_{D-1}(SO(D+1))$. These invariants are not solely determined by the connection bundle but depend also on the bundle of local ortho…
We respond to the comment by Kreimer et. al. about the torsional contribution to the chiral anomaly in curved spacetimes. We discuss their claims and refute its main conclusion.
Torsional strain in Weyl semimetals excites a unidirectional chiral density wave propagating in the direction of the torsional vector. This gapless excitation, named the chiral sound wave, is generated by a particular realization of the axial anomaly via the triple-axial (AAA) anomalous diagram. We show that the presence of the torsion-generated chiral sound leads to a linear behavior of the specific heat of a Weyl semimetal and to an enhancement of the thermal conductivty at experimentally accessible temperatures. We also demonstrate that such an elastic twist lowers the temperature of the sa…
The topological structure of the Nieh-Yan form in 4-dimensional manifold is given by making use of the decomposition of spin connection. The case of the generalized Nieh-Yan form on $2^d$-dimensional manifold is discussed with an example of 8-dimensional case studied in detail. The chiral anomaly with nonvanishing torsion is studied also. The further contributions from torsional part to chiral anomaly are found coming from the zeroes of some fields under pure gauge condition.
We determine bounds on the curvature of local patches of spacetime from the requirement of intact long-range chiral symmetry. The bounds arise from a scale-dependent analysis of gravitational catalysis and its influence on the effective potential for the chiral order parameter, as induced by fermionic fluctuations on a curved spacetime with local hyperbolic properties. The bound is expressed in terms of the local curvature scalar measured in units of a gauge-invariant coarse-graining scale. We argue that any effective field theory of quantum gravity obeying this curvature bound is safe from ch…
We perform an explicit calculation of the axial current at finite rotation and temperature in curved space. We find that finite curvature and mass corrections to the chiral vortical effect satisfy a relation of the chiral gap effect, that is, a fermion mass-shift by a scalar curvature. We also point out that a product term of the angular velocity and the scalar curvature shares the same coefficient as the mixed gravitational chiral anomaly. We discuss possible applications of the curvature induced chiral vortical effect to rotating astrophysical compact objects described by the Kerr metric. In…
We provide a geometrical argument for the emergence of a Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) term for a Fermi surface threaded by a Berry curvature. In the presence of external fields, the gauged WZW term yields a chiral (triangle) anomaly for the fermionic current at the edge of the Fermi surface. Fermion number is conserved though since the Berry curvatures occur always in pairs with opposite (monopole) charge. The anomalous vector and axial currents for a a fermionic fluid at low temperature threaded by pairs of Berry curvatures are discussed. The leading temperature correction to the chiral vortical …
The partition function and the order parameter for the chiral symmetry breaking are computed for a family of 2-dimensional interacting theories containing the gauged Thirring model. In particular we derive non-perturbative expressions for the dependence of the chiral condensate on the temperature and the curvature. Both, high temperature and high curvature supress the condensate exponentially and we can associate an effective temperature to the curvature.
We develop the effective field theory approach to torsional modified gravities, a formalism that allows for the systematic investigation of the background and perturbation levels separately. Starting from the usual effective field theory approach to curvature-based gravity, we suitably generalize it at the background level by including terms of the contracted torsion tensor, and at the perturbation level by including pure torsion perturbative terms and mixed perturbative terms of torsion and curvature. Having constructed the effective field theory action of general torsional modified gravity, …
We investigate one-parameter family of transformation on superfields of super principal chiral model and obtain different zero-curvature representations of the model. The parametric transformation is related to the super Riccati equations and an infinite set of local and non-local conservation laws is derived. A Lax representation of the model is presented which gives rise to a superspace monodromy operator.
We derive a relativistic chiral kinetic equation with manifest Lorentz covariance from Wigner functions of spin-1/2 massless fermions in a constant background electromagnetic field. It contains vorticity terms and a 4-dimensional Euclidean Berry monopole which gives axial anomaly. By integrating out the zero-th component of the 4-momentum p, we reproduce the previous 3-dimensional results derived from the Hamiltonian approach, together with the newly derived vorticity terms. The phase space continuity equation has an anomalous source term proportional to the product of electric and magnetic fi…
Let (M,g) be a compact oriented Einstein 4-manifold. Write R-plus for the part of the curvature operator of g which acts on self-dual 2-forms. We prove that if R-plus is negative definite then g is locally rigid: any other Einstein metric near to g is isometric to it. This is a chiral generalisation of Koiso's Theorem, which proves local rigidity of Einstein metrics with negative sectional curvatures. Our hypotheses are roughly one half of Koiso's. Our proof uses a new variational description of Einstein 4-manifolds, as critical points of the so-called poure connection action S. The key step i…
In a three-dimensional Fermi liquid, quasiparticles near the Fermi surface may possess a Berry curvature. We show that if the Berry curvature has a nonvanishing flux through the Fermi surface, the particle number associated with this Fermi surface has a triangle anomaly in external electromagnetic fields. We show how Landau's Fermi liquid theory should be modified to take into account the Berry curvature. We show that the "chiral magnetic effect" also emerges from the Berry curvature flux.
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 gravitat…
We establish the Berry-phase formulas for the angular momentum (AM) and the Hall viscosity (HV) to investigate chiral superconductors (SCs) in two and three dimensions. The AM is defined by the temporal integral of the anti-symmetric momentum current induced by an adiabatic deformation, while the HV is defined by the symmetric momentum current induced by the symmetric torsional electric field. Without suffering from the system size or geometry, we obtain the macroscopic AM $L_z = \hbar m N_0/2$ at zero temperature in full-gap chiral SCs, where $m$ is the magnetic quantum number and $N_0$ is th…
We construct $F(T,\left(\nabla{T}\right)^2,\Box {T})$ gravitational modifications, which are novel classes of modified theories arising from higher-derivative torsional terms in the action, and are different than their curvature analogue. Applying them in a cosmological framework we obtain an effective dark energy sector that comprises of the novel torsional contributions. We perform a detailed dynamical analysis for two specific examples, extracting the stable late-time solutions and calculating the corresponding observables. We show that the thermal history of the universe can be reproduced,…
We determine the curvature of the pseudo-critical line of strong interactions by means of numerical simulations at imaginary chemical potentials. We consider $N_f=2+1$ stout improved staggered fermions with physical quark masses and the tree level Symanzik gauge action, and explore four different sets of lattice spacings, corresponding to $N_t = 6,8,10,12$, in order to extrapolate results to the continuum limit. Our final estimate is $κ= 0.0135(20)$.
We study the holographic currents associated to Chern-Simons theories. We start with an example in three dimensions and find the holographic representations of vector and chiral currents reproducing the correct expression for the chiral anomaly. In five dimensions, Chern-Simons theory for AdS group describes first order gravity and we show that there exists a gauge fixing leading to a finite Fefferman-Graham expansion. We derive the corresponding holographic currents, namely, the stress tensor and spin current which couple to the metric and torsional degrees of freedom at the boundary, respect…
The phase structure of the $d=3$ Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model in curved spacetime is considered to leading order in the $1/N$--expansion and in the linear curvature approximation. The possibility of a curvature-induced first-order phase transition is investigated numerically. The dynamically generated fermionic mass is calculated for some values of the curvature.
We study the nonlinear responses of relativistic chiral matter to the external fields, such as the electric field ${\bf E}$, gradients of temperature and chemical potential, ${\bf \nabla} T$ and ${\bf \nabla} μ$. Using the kinetic theory with Berry curvature corrections under the relaxation time approximation, we compute the transport coefficients of possible new electric currents that are forbidden in usual chirally symmetric matter, but are allowed in chirally asymmetric matter by parity. In particular, we find a new type of electric current proportional to ${\bf \nabla} μ\times {\bf E}$ due…
We discuss the phase structure (in the $1/N$-expansion) of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model in curved spacetime with non-trivial topology ${\cal M}^3 \times {\rm S}^1$. The evaluation of the effective potential of the composite field $\barψ ψ$ is presented in the linear curvature approximation (topology is treated exactly) and in the leading order of the $1/N$-expansion. The combined influence of topology and curvature to the phase transitions is investigated. It is shown, in particular, that at zero curvature and for small radius of the torus there is a second order phase transition from the chir…
We study the dynamical breaking of chiral and color symmetries of dense quark matter in the ultrastatic hyperbolic spacetime $R\otimes H^3$ in the framework of an extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. On the basis of analytical expressions for chiral and color condensates as functions of curvature and temperature, the phenomenon of dimensional reduction and gravitational catalysis of symmetry breaking in strong gravitational field is demonstrated in the regime of weak coupling constants. In the case of strong couplings it is shown that curvature leads to small corrections to the flat-space value…
Relativistic gravitational anomalies lead to anomalous transport coefficients that can be activated at finite temperature in condensed matter systems with gapless fermions. The chiral vortical effect (CVE) is an anomalous chiral current along a rotation axis, expressed in terms of a gravimagnetic field and a gravitational anomaly. Another one, the chiral torsional effect (CTE), arises from hydrodynamically independent frame fields and connection. We discuss the relation of CVE, CTE and gravitational anomalies for relativistic fermions from the perspective of torsion and the Nieh-Yan anomaly. T…
In this note we consider non-relativistic rotating fermi liquid in the presence of Berry curvature. The behavior of the system is then almost the same as in external magnetic field. We argue that there appears an analogue of chiral vortical effect in the liquid if Berry curvature has a non-vanishing flux through sheets of Fermi surfaces and chemical potentials are different. We also claim that quantum anomalies in condensed matter context provide a theoretical and experimental testing ground for the origin of chiral effects, their carriers etc.
We consider O(3) sigma-model as a reduction of the principal chiral field. This approach allows to introduce the currents with ultralocal Poisson brackets and to obtain the zero-curvature equation which admits the fundamental Poisson bracket.
We discuss the phase structure of the NJL model in curved spacetime with magnetic field using $1/N$-expansion and linear curvature approximation. The effective potential for composite fields $\barψψ$ is calculated using the proper-time cut-off in the following cases: a) at non-zero curvature, b) at non-zero curvature and non-zero magnetic field, and c) at non-zero curvature and non-zero covariantly constant gauge field. Chiral symmetry breaking is studied numerically. We show that the gravitational field may compensate the effect of the magnetic field what leads to restoration of chiral symmet…
We study the dynamical generation of the chiral chemical potential in a Weyl metal constructed from a three-dimensional optical lattice and subject to synthetic gauge fields. By numerically solving the Boltzmann equation with the Berry curvature in the presence of parallel synthetic electric and magnetic fields, we find that the spectral flow and the ensuing chiral magnetic current emerge. We show that the spectral flow and the chiral chemical potential can be probed by time-of-flight imaging.
Circularly polarized photons have the Berry curvature in the semiclassical regime. Based on the kinetic equation for such chiral photons, we derive the (non)equilibrium expression of the photon current in the direction of the vorticity. We briefly discuss the relevance of this "photonic chiral vortical effect" in pulsars and rotating massive stars and its possible realization in semiconductors.
