We give a brief overview of the kinetic theory for spin-1/2 fermions in Wigner function formulism. The chiral and spin kinetic equations can be derived from equations for Wigner functions. A general Wigner function has 16 components which satisfy 32 coupled equations. For massless fermions, the number of independent equations can be significantly reduced due to the decoupling of left-handed and right-handed particles. It can be proved that out of many components of Wigner functions and their coupled equations, only one kinetic equation for the distribution function is independent. This is called the disentanglement theorem for Wigner functions of chiral fermions. For massive fermions, it turns out that one particle distribution function and three spin distribution functions are independent and satisfy four kinetic equations. Various chiral and spin effects such as chiral magnetic and votical effects, the chiral seperation effect, spin polarization effects can be consistently described in the formalism.
We study how the mass and magnetic moment of the quarks are dynamically generated in nonequilibrium quark matter. We derive the equal-time transport and constraint equations for the quark Wigner function in a magnetized quark model and solve them in the semi-classical expansion. The quark mass and magnetic moment are self-consistently coupled to the Wigner function and controlled by the kinetic equations. While the quark mass is dynamically generated at the classical level, the quark magnetic moment is a pure quantum effect, induced by the quark spin interaction with the external magnetic fiel…
We discuss the Heisenberg-Wigner phase-space formalism in quantum electrodynamics as well as scalar quantum electrodynamics with respect to transverse fields. In regard to the special characteristics of such field types we derive modified transport equations such that particle momenta perpendicular to the propagation direction of the waves show up as external parameters only. In case of spatially oscillating fields we further demonstrate how to transform momentum derivative operators of infinite order into simple coupling terms.
We investigate strong field vacuum effects using a phase space approach based on the Wigner formalism. We calculate the Wigner function in a strong null-field background exactly, using lightfront field theory. The Wigner function exhibits the distinct features of strong field QED: in particular we identify the effective mass in a laser pulse, compare it to the well-known mass shift in a periodic plane wave and identify signals of multi-photon absorption and emission. Finally, we show how to extend our results to describe vacuum pair production in colliding laser pulses.
Recently there has been significant interest in understanding the macroscopic quantum transport in a many-body system of chiral fermions. A natural framework for describing such a system which is generally out of equilibrium, is the transport equation for its phase space distribution function. In this paper, we obtain a complete solution of the covariant chiral transport for massless fermions, by starting from the general Wigner function formalism and carrying out a complete and consistent semiclassical expansion up to $\hat{\mathbf{O}}(\hbar)$ order. In particular, we clarify certain subtle a…
We derive the chiral kinetic equation in 8 dimensional phase space in non-Abelian $SU(N)$ gauge field within the Wigner function formalism. By using the "covariant gradient expansion", we disentangle the Wigner equations in four-vector space up to the first order and find that only the time-like component of the chiral Wigner function is independent while other components can be explicit derivative. After further decomposing the Wigner function or equations in color space, we present the non-Abelian covariant chiral kinetic equation for the color singlet and multiplet phase-space distribution …
We revisit the chiral anomaly in the quantum kinetic theory in the Wigner function formalism under the background field approximation. Our results show that the chiral anomaly is actually from the Dirac sea or the vacuum contribution in the un-normal-ordered Wigner function. We also demonstrate that this contribution modifies the chiral kinetic equation for antiparticles.
The non-perturbative electron-positron pair production (Schwinger effect) is considered for space- and time-dependent electric fields $\vec{E}(\vec{x},t)$. Based on the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner (DHW), formalism we derive a system of partial differential equations of infinite order for the sixteen irreducible components of the Wigner function. In the limit of spatially homogeneous fields the Vlasov equation of quantum kinetic theory (QKT) is rediscovered. It is shown that the quantum kinetic formalism can be exactly solved in the case of a constant electric field $E(t)=E_0$ and the Sauter-type e…
By combining the Wigner function formalism of relativistic quantum kinetic theory with fundamental equations of relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), we present a novel approach to determine the proper time evolution of the temperature and other thermodynamic quantities in a uniformly expanding hot, magnetized, and weakly interacting plasma. The aim is to study the contribution of quantum corrections to this evolution. We first determine the corresponding Wigner function in terms of the solution of the Dirac equation in the presence of a constant magnetic field. Using this function, we then…
The Vlasov type quantum kinetic equation for deconfined quarks in strong quasi-classical gluon field is derived in the covariant single-time formalism. The equations system for the Wigner function components is obtained as a result of spinor and color decomposition. The field-free and vacuum solutions of the kinetic equation are found, and the conservation laws are derived. The flux-tube configuration of gluon field is discussed in detail.
The Wigner function formalism has been applied to the analysis of elastic scattering processes. The new element of known formalism is the choice of the phase space on which the Wigner function is defined. This phase space is 4-dimensional space of canonically conjugate variables - the transverse momentum of scattered particle and the projection of the vector of the closest approach of particles in the plane which is perpendicular to the momentum of initial particle. The exact expression for the mean value of the scattered particles production area radius through a scattering amplitude has been…
We clarify the relationship between the current formalism developed by Gyulassy, Kaufmann and Wilson and the Wigner function formulation suggested by Pratt for the 2-particle correlator in Hanbury-Brown Twiss interferometry. When applied to a hydrodynamical description of the source with a sharp freeze-out hypersurface, our results remove a slight error in the prescription given by Makhlin and Sinyukov which has led to confusion in the literature.
In the paper we study the Breit-Wigner enhancement of dark matter (DM) annihilation considering the kinetic decoupling in the evolution of DM freeze-out at the early universe. Since the DM temperature decreases much faster (as $1/R^2$) after kinetic decoupling than that in kinetic equilibrium (as 1/R) we find the Breit-Wigner enhancement of DM annihilation rate after the kinetic decoupling will affect the DM relic density significantly. Focusing on the model parameters that trying to explain the anomalous cosmic positron/electron excesses observed by PAMELA/Fermi/ATIC we find the elastic scatt…
Rotating photon gas exhibits a chirality separation along the angular velocity which is manifested through a generation of helicity and zilch currents. In this paper we study this system using the corresponding Wigner function and construct elements of the covariant chiral kinetic theory for photons from first principles. The Wigner function is solved order-by-order in $\hbar$ and the unconstrained terms are fixed by matching with quantum field theory results. We further consider the zilch and helicity currents and show that both manifestations of the chirality transport originate in the Berry…
We derive the Wigner functions of polarized photons in the Coulomb gauge with the $\hbar$ 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 adopt…
We find that the recently developed kinetic theories with spin for massive and massless fermions are smoothly connected. By introducing a reference-frame vector, we decompose the dipole-moment tensor into electric and magnetic dipole moments. We show that the axial-vector component of the Wigner function contains a contribution from the transverse magnetic dipole moment which accounts for the transverse spin degree of freedom (DOF) and vanishes smoothly in the massless limit. As a result, the kinetic equations, describing four DOF for massive fermions, becomes smoothly the chiral kinetic equat…
The Wigner function, which provides a phase-space description of quantum systems, has various applications in quantum mechanics, quantum kinetic theory, quantum optics, radiation transport and others. The concept of Wigner function has been extended to quantum fields, scalar and electromagnetic. Then, one deals with the Wigner functional which gives a distribution of field and its conjugate momentum. We introduce here the Wigner functional of fermionic fields of the values in a Grassmann algebra. Properties of the functional are discussed and its equation of motion, which is of the Liouville's…
We calculate the Wigner function for massive spin-1/2 particles in an inhomogeneous electromagnetic field to leading order in the Planck constant $\hbar$. Going beyond leading order in $\hbar$ we then derive a generalized Boltzmann equation in which the force exerted by an inhomogeneous electromagnetic field on the particle dipole moment arises naturally. Furthermore, a kinetic equation for this dipole moment is derived. Carefully taking the massless limit we find agreement with previous results. The case of global equilibrium with rotation is also studied. Our framework can be used to study p…
We proceed to derive equations for the symmetric tensor of the second rank on the basis of the Bargmann-Wigner formalism in a straightforward way. The symmetric multispinor of the fourth rank is used. It is constructed out of the Dirac 4-spinors. Due to serious problems with the interpretation of the results obtained on using the standard procedure we generalize it and obtain the spin-2 relativistic equations, which are consistent with the previous one. The importance of the 4-vector field (and its gauge part) is pointed out.
By using the exact solutions of the Weyl equation in a constant magnetic field, the equal-time Wigner function for magnetized chiral plasma is derived. It is found that the dependence of the Wigner function on the component of momentum along the magnetic field is asymmetric and is correlated with the fermion chirality. Such a dependence is principal for reproducing the correct chiral magnetic and chiral separation effects. In the lowest Landau level approximation, the equation for the equal-time Wigner function in a strong magnetic field is derived. By making use of this equation, it is found …
In this paper the emergence of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) and the related anomalous current is investigated using the real time Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism. This method is widely used for describing strong field physics and QED vacuum tunneling phenomena as well as pair production in heavy-ion collisions. We extend earlier investigations of the CME in constant flux tube configuration by considering time dependent fields. In this model we can follow the formation of axial charge separation, formation of axial current and then the emergence of the anomalous electric current. Qualitat…
We derive the kinetic equation for fermions and antifermions interacting with a planar Higgs bubble wall during the electroweak phase transition using the `evenisation' procedure and the Wigner formalism for a Lagrangian with the phase of the complex fermion mass rotated away. We obtain the energy, velocity and force for the particles in the presence of the Higgs bubble wall. Our results using both methods are in agreement. This indicates the robustness of evenisation as a method to study quantum corrections to the velocity and force for particles in the Higgs wall during the electroweak phase…
We calculate the Wigner function for massive spin-1/2 particles in an inhomogeneous electromagnetic field to leading order in the Planck constant $\hbar$. Going beyond leading order in $\hbar$ we then derive a generalized Boltzmann equation in which the force exerted by an inhomogeneous electromagnetic field on the particle dipole moment arises naturally. Carefully taking the massless limit we find agreement with previous results. The case of global equilibrium with rotation is also studied. Finally, we outline the derivation of fluid-dynamical equations from the components of the Wigner funct…
We develop a general formalism for the quantum kinetics of chiral fermions in a background electromagnetic field based on a semiclassical expansion of covariant Wigner functions in the Planck constant $\hbar$. We demonstrate to any order of $\hbar$ that only the time-component of the Wigner function is independent while other components are explicit derivative. We further demonstrate to any order of $\hbar$ that a system of quantum kinetic equations for multiple-components of Wigner functions can be reduced to one chiral kinetic equation involving only the single-component distribution functio…
The emergence of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) and the related anomalous current is investigated using the real time Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism. This method is widely used for describing strong field physics and QED vacuum tunneling phenomena as well as pair-production in heavy-ion collisions. We extend earlier investigations of the CME in constant fluxtube configuration by considering time dependent fields. In our model we can follow the formation of axial charge separation, formation of axial current and then the emergence of the anomalous electric current. Qualitative results are …
We derive a quantum kinetic theory for QED based on Kadanoff-Baym equations for Wigner functions. By assuming parity invariance and considering a complete set of self-energy diagrams, we find the resulting kinetic theory expanded to lowest order in $\hbar$ generalizes the well-known classical kinetic theory to massive case. It contains elastic and inelastic collision terms and integrates screening effect naturally. For a given solution to the classical kinetic theory, we find at next order in $\hbar$ a non-dynamical quantum correction to Wigner functions for both fermions and photons, which gi…
The consistent description of resonant transition amplitudes within the framework of perturbative field theories necessitates the definition and resummation of off-shell Green's functions, which must respect several crucial physical requirements. In particular, the generalization of the usual Breit-Wigner formalism in a non-Abelian context constitutes a highly non-trivial problem, related to the fact that the conventionally defined Green's functions are unphysical. We briefly review the main field-theoretical difficulties arising when attempting to use such Green's functions outside the confin…
We develop Wigner - Weyl formalism for the lattice models. For the definiteness we consider Wilson fermions in the presence of $U(1)$ gauge field. The given technique reduces calculation of the two point fermionic Green function to solution of the Groenewold equation. It relates Wigner transformation of the Green function with the Weyl symbol $Q_W$ of Wilson Dirac operator. We derive the simple expression for $Q_W$ in the presence of varying external $U(1)$ gauge field. Next, we solve the Groenewold equation to all orders in powers of the derivatives of $Q_W$. Thus the given technique allows t…
We introduce the quantum-field-theory (QFT) derivation of chiral kinetic theory (CKT) from the Wigner-function approach, which manifests side jumps and non-scalar distribution functions associated with Lorentz covariance and incorporates both background fields and collisions. The formalism is utilized to investigate second-order responses of chiral fluids near local equilibrium. Such non-equilibrium anomalous transport is dissipative and affected by interactions. Contributions from both quantum corrections in anomalous hydrodynamic equations (EOM) of motion and those from the CKT and Wigner fu…
We present the complete first order relativistic quantum kinetic theory with spin for massive fermions derived from the Wigner function formalism in a concise form that shows explicitly how the 32 Wigner equations reduce to 4 independent transport equations. We solve modified on-shell conditions to obtain the general solution and present the corresponding transport equations in three different forms that are suitable for different purposes. We demonstrate how different spin effects arise from the kinetic theory by calculating the chiral separation effect with mass correction, the chiral anomal…
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…
We derive the quantum kinetic equations for massive and massless quarks coupled with the background chromo-electromagnetic fields from the Wigner-function approach with the $\hbar$ expansion and effective power-counting scheme. For each case, one obtains coupled color-singlet and color-octet kinetic equations, which also involve the scalar and axial-vector components for the charge and spin transport. These kinetic equations delineate entangled evolution of the corresponding distribution functions decomposed in color space. At weak coupling, we derive the close form of the color-singlet kineti…
We present a formalism how to calculate differential distributions for dilepton production in semicentral heavy ion collisions. In this new approach, the differential cross section is calculated using the complete polarization density matrix of photons resulting from the Wigner distribution formalism. The formalism is used to calculate different distributions of the invariant mass, dilepton transverse momentum and acoplanarity for different regions of centrality. The results of the calculation are compared with recent experimental data. We also study the contribution from different parts of im…
We formulate a kinetic theory of self-interacting meson fields with an aim to describe the freezeout stage of the space-time evolution of matter in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions. Kinetic equations are obtained from the Heisenberg equation of motion for a single component real scalar quantum field taking the mean field approximation for the non-linear interaction. The mesonic mean field obeys the classical non-linear Klein-Gordon equation with a modification due to the coupling to mesonic quasi-particle excitations which are expressed in terms of the Wigner functions of the quantum fluct…
We construct a matrix-valued spin-dependent distribution function (MVSD) for massive spin-1/2 fermions and study its properties under Lorentz transformations. Such transformations result in a Wigner rotation in spin space and in a nontrivial matrix-valued shift in space-time, which corresponds to the side jump in the massless case. We express the vector and axial-vector components of the Wigner function in terms of the MVSD and show that they transform in a Lorentz-covariant manner. We then construct a manifestly Lorentz-covariant Boltzmann equation which contains a nonlocal collision term enc…
A power expansion scheme is set up to determine the Wigner function that satisfies the quantum kinetic equation for spin-1/2 charged fermions in a background electromagnetic field. Vector and axial-vector current induced by magnetic field and vorticity are obtained simultaneously from the Wigner function. The chiral magnetic and vortical effect and chiral anomaly are shown as natural consequences of the quantum kinetic equation. The axial-vector current induced by vorticity is argued to lead to a local polarization effect along the vorticity direction in heavy-ion collisions.
Evolution of highly excited quantum field is considered in the framework of Keldysh formalism . It is demonstrated that leading order (LO) term of semiclassical approximation appears as well-known Classical Statistical Approximation (CSA). In simple case of spatially homogeneous scalar field analytical expressions for leading and next-to-leading (NLO) order are presented. It is shown that the range of applicability of CSA strongly depends on the properties of the initial state of the system
The model-independent formalism is constructed to describe decays of mixed particles without using the Weisskopf-Wigner approximation. Limitations due to various symmetries are traced for neutral $K-$mesons. As an application we show that effects of $CPT-$violation and going beyond WWA may be separated and studied independently.
We derive the kinetic equations for both the covariant and equal-time Wigner functions of Dirac particles with electromagnetic, scalar and pseudoscalar interactions. We emphasize the constraint equations for the spinor components in the equal-time formulation.
Study of spin states in vacuum pair production via the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism
State Key Laboratory for Tunnel Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology（中国矿业大学隧道工程国家重点实验室）；School of Science, China University of Mining and Technology（中国矿业大学理学院）
Within Wigner function formalism, the chiral anomaly arises naturally from the Dirac sea contribution in un-normal-ordered Wigner function. For massless fermions, the Dirac sea contribution behaves like a 4-dimensional or 3-dimensional Berry monopole in Euclidian momentum space, while for massive fermions, although Dirac sea still leads to the chiral anomaly but there is no Berry monopole at infrared momentum region. We discuss these points explicitly in a simple and concrete example.
The formalism based on the equal-time Wigner function of the two-point correlation function for a quantized Klein--Gordon field is presented. The notion of the gauge-invariant Wigner transform is introduced and equations for the corresponding phase-space calculus are formulated. The equations of motion governing the Wigner function of the Klein--Gordon field are derived. It is shown that they lead to a relativistic transport equation with electric and magnetic forces and quantum corrections. The governing equations are much simpler than in the fermionic case which has been treated earlier. In …
