We systematically analyze the effects of the derivatives of the hydrodynamic fields on axial Wigner function that describes the spin polarization vector in phase space. We have included all possible first-order derivative contributions that are allowed by symmetry and compute the associated transport functions at one-loop using the linear response theory. In addition to reproducing known effects due to the temperature gradient and vorticity, we have identified a number of potentially significant contributions that are overlooked previously. In particular, we find that the shear strength, the symmetric and traceless part of the flow gradient, will induce a quadrupole for spin polarization in the phase space. We refer to this novel effect as the shear-induced polarization (SIP). Our results, together with hydrodynamic gradients obtained from hydrodynamic simulations, can be employed as a basis for the interpretation of the $Λ$ (anti-$Λ$) spin polarization measurement in heavy-ion collisions.
Relativistic hydrodynamic equations for particles with spin one-half are used to determine the space-time evolution of the spin polarization in a boost-invariant and transversely homogeneous background. The hydrodynamic approach uses the forms of the energy-momentum and spin tensors based on de Groot, van Leeuwen, and van Weert formalism. Our calculations illustrate how the formalism of hydrodynamics with spin can be used to determine physical observables related to the spin polarization and how the latter can be compared with the experimental data.
With the PICR hydrodynamic model, we study the polarization splitting between $Λ$ and $\barΛ$ at RHIC BES energy range, based on the meson field mechanism. Our results fit to the experimental data fairly well. Besides, two unexpected effect emerges: (1) the baryon density gradient has non-trivial and negative contribution to the polarization splitting; (2) for 7.7 GeV Au+Au collisions within the centrality range of 20\%-50\%, the polarization splitting surprisingly increases with the centrality decreases. The second effect might help to explain the significant signal of polarization splitting …
We briefly review a recently proposed formalism of perfect-fluid hydrodynamics with spin, which is a generalization of the standard hydrodynamic framework and provides a natural tool for describing the evolution of spin-polarized systems of particles with spin 1/2. It is based on the de Groot - van Leeuwen - van Weert forms of energy-momentum and spin tensors and conservation laws. Using Bjorken symmetry we show how this formalism may be used to determine observables describing the polarization of particles measured in the experiment.
We study helicity polarization through the (3+1) dimensional relativistic viscous hydrodynamic models at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$GeV Au+Au collisions. Similar to the local spin polarization, we consider the helicity polarization beyond global equilibrium and investigate the contributions induced by thermal vorticity, shear viscous tensor, and the fluid acceleration. We find that the local helicity polarization induced by thermal vorticity dominates over other contributions. It also implies that in the low-energy collisions, the the fluid vorticity as part of thermal vorticity may play the crucial r…
Newly introduced equilibrium Wigner functions for particles with spin one-half are used in the semi-classical kinetic equations to study a possible relation between thermal vorticity and spin polarization. It is shown that in global equilibrium both the thermal-vorticity and spin polarization tensors are constant but not necessarily equal. In the case of local equilibrium, we define a procedure leading to hydrodynamic equations with spin. We introduce such equations for the de~Groot, van~Leeuwen, and van~Weert (GLW) formalism as well as for the canonical scheme (these two frameworks differ by …
We compute the gradient expansion for anisotropic hydrodynamics. The results are compared with the corresponding expansion of the underlying kinetic-theory model with the collision term treated in the relaxation time approximation. We find that a recent formulation of anisotropic hydrodynamics based on an anisotropic matching principle yields the first three terms of the gradient expansion in agreement with those obtained for the kinetic theory. This gives further support for this particular hydrodynamic model as a good approximation of the kinetic-theory approach. We further find that the gra…
We perform a systematic study of the spin polarization of hyperons in heavy-ion collisions using the MUSIC hydrodynamic model with A Multi-Phase Transport (AMPT) pre-equilibrium dynamics. Our model calculations nicely describe the measured collision-energy, centrality, rapidity, and $p_T$ dependence of $Λ$ polarization. We also study and predict the global spin polarization of $Ξ^-$ and $Ω^-$ as a function of collision energy, which provides a baseline for the studies of the magnetic moment, spin, and mass dependence of the spin polarization. For the local spin polarization, we calculate the r…
In hydrodynamic approach to relativistic heavy ion collisions, hadrons with nonzero spin, produced out of the hydrodynamic medium, can acquire polarization via spin-vorticity thermodynamic coupling mechanism. The hydrodynamical quantity steering the polarization is the thermal vorticity, that is minus the antisymmetric part of the gradient of four-temperature field. Based on this mechanism there have been several calculations in hydrodynamic and non-hydrodynamic models for non-central heavy ion collisions in the RHIC Beam Energy Scan energy range, showing that the amount of polarization of pro…
The total angular momentum is conserved in the evolution of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in heavy-ion collision, and consists of two sectors: the orbital angular momentum (OAM) caused by kinetic motion, and the spin, an intrinsic degree of freedom of quarks and gluons. Microscopic scattering processes allow the conversion between these two components, hence the spin density could eventually have non-trivial influence on the QGP evolution. A hydrodynamic theory, with the spin polarization effect properly taken into account, is required to quantitatively study the polarization rate for o…
In this article we review the perfect-fluid hydrodynamics with spin framework proposed recently. This framework generalises the standard relativistic hydrodynamics framework to include spin degrees of freedom and provides a natural method to describe the spin polarization evolution of massive spin 1/2 particles. This formalism is based on the GLW (de Groot - van Leeuwen - van Weert) energy-momentum tensor and spin tensor. We show here using Bjorken model that how this spin hydrodynamics framework may be used for the determination of the observables which describes the particle polarization mea…
In this work, we start with chiral kinetic theory and construct the spin hydrodynamic framework for a chiral spinor system. Using the 14-moment expansion formalism, we obtain the equations of motion of second-order dissipative relativistic fluid dynamics with non-trivial spin polarization density. In a chiral spinor system, the spin alignment effect could be treated in the same framework as the Chiral Vortical Effect (CVE). However, the quantum corrections due to fluid vorticity induce not only CVE terms in the vector/axial charge currents but also corrections to the stress tensor. In this fra…
Consistent formulations of relativistic viscous hydrodynamics involve short lived modes, leading to asymptotic rather than convergent gradient expansions. In this Letter we consider the Mueller-Israel-Stewart theory applied to a longitudinally expanding quark-gluon plasma system and identify hydrodynamics as a universal attractor without invoking the gradient expansion. We give strong evidence for the existence of this attractor and then show that it can be recovered from the divergent gradient expansion by Borel summation. This requires careful accounting for the short-lived modes which leads…
A foundational question in relativistic fluid mechanics concerns the properties of the hydrodynamic gradient expansion at large orders. We establish the precise conditions under which this gradient expansion diverges for a broad class of microscopic theories admitting a relativistic hydrodynamic limit, in the linear regime. Our result does not rely on highly symmetric fluid flows utilized by previous studies of heavy-ion collisions and cosmology. The hydrodynamic gradient expansion diverges whenever energy density or velocity fields have support in momentum space exceeding a critical momentum,…
We review basic ingredients of the recently introduced perfect-fluid hydrodynamic equations for particles with spin one-half. For a quasi-realistic setup, first numerical solutions for various hydrodynamic variables including the spin polarization tensor are presented. Our results indicate that the initial spin polarization of the hottest region may play a dominant role in the polarization of particles at freeze-out.
We study the spin polarization generated by the hydrodynamic gradients. In addition to the widely studied thermal vorticity effects, we identify an undiscovered contribution from the fluid shear. This shear-induced polarization (SIP) can be viewed as the fluid analog of strain-induced polarization observed in elastic and nematic materials. We obtain the explicit expression for SIP using the quantum kinetic equation and linear response theory. Based on a realistic hydrodynamic model, we compute the differential spin polarization along both the beam direction $\hat{z}$ and the out-plane directio…
We derive the general analytical solution of the viscous hydrodynamic equations for an ultrarelativistic gas of hard spheres undergoing Bjorken expansion, taking into account effects from particle number conservation, and use it to analytically determine its attractor at late times. Differently than all the cases considered before involving rapidly expanding fluids, in this example the gradient expansion converges. We exactly determine the hydrodynamic attractor of this system when its microscopic dynamics is modeled by the Boltzmann equation with a fully nonlinear collision kernel. The exact …
We summarize the key ingredients of the recently proposed formalism of relativistic perfect-fluid hydrodynamics with spin. Based on the underlying kinetic theory definitions for the equilibrium distribution functions we obtain the evolution equations governing the system's expansion. Employing Bjorken symmetry we study the spin polarization dynamics of the system.
We utilize the fluid-gravity duality to investigate the large order behavior of hydrodynamic gradient expansion of the dynamics of a gauge theory plasma system. This corresponds to the inclusion of dissipative terms and transport coefficients of very high order. Using the dual gravity description, we calculate numerically the form of the stress tensor for a boost-invariant flow in a hydrodynamic expansion up to terms with 240 derivatives. We observe a factorial growth of gradient contributions at large orders, which indicates a zero radius of convergence of the hydrodynamic series. Furthermore…
We compute the fermion spin distribution in the vortical fluid created in off-central high-energy heavy-ion collisions. We employ the event-by-event (3+1)D viscous hydrodynamic model. The spin polarization density is proportional to the local fluid vorticity in quantum kinetic theory. As a result of strong collectivity, the spatial distribution of the local vorticity on the freeze-out hyper-surface strongly correlates to the rapidity and azimuthal angle distribution of fermion spins. We investigate the sensitivity of the local polarization to the initial fluid velocity in the hydrodynamic mode…
The gradient expansion is the fundamental organising principle underlying relativistic hydrodynamics, yet understanding its convergence properties for general nonlinear flows has posed a major challenge. We introduce a simple method to address this question in a class of fluids modelled by Israel-Stewart--type relaxation equations. We apply it to (1+1)-dimensional flows and provide numerical evidence for factorially divergent gradient expansions. This generalises results previously only obtained for (0+1)-dimensional comoving flows, notably Bjorken flow. We also demonstrate that the only known…
We study local spin polarization in the relativistic hydrodynamic model. Generalizing the Wigner functions previously obtained from chiral kinetic theory by Y. Hidaka et al. [Phys. Rev. D 97, 016004 (2018)] to the massive case, we present the possible contributions up to the order of $\hbar$ from thermal vorticity, shear viscous tensor, other terms associated with the temperature and chemical-potential gradients, and electromagnetic fields to the local spin polarization. We then implement the (3+1)-dimensional viscous hydrodynamic model to study the spin polarizations from these sources with a…
We argue that a detailed analysis of the spin alignement of vector mesons can serve as a probe of two little-understood aspects of spin dynamics in the vortical fluid: The degree of relaxation between vorticity and parton spin polarization, and the degree of coherence of the hadron wavefunction at freeze-out. We illustrate these with a coalescence model.
This letter is dedicated to providing proof of two statements concerning the gradient expansion of relativistic hydrodynamics. The first statement is that \textit{the ordering of transverse derivatives is irrelevant in the gradient expansion of a non-conformal fluid}. The second statement is that \textit{the longitudinal projection of the Weyl covariant derivative can be eliminated in the gradient expansion of a conformal fluid}. This second statement does not apply to curvature tensors. In the conformal case, we know that the ordering of Weyl covariant derivatives is irrelevant in the gradien…
We present a systematic study of $Λ$ hyperon's polarization observables using event-by-event (3+1)D relativistic hydrodynamics. The effects of initial hot spot size and QGP's specific shear viscosity on the polarization observables are quantified. We examine the effects of the two formulations of the thermal shear tensor on the polarization observables using the same hydrodynamic background. With event-by-event simulations, we make predictions for the Fourier coefficients of $Λ$'s longitudinal polarization $P^z$ with respect to the event planes of different orders of anisotropic flow. We propo…
We give a theoretical perspective on the vorticity and spin polarization in heavy-ion collisions. We discuss the recent progress in spin hydrodynamics and spin kinetic theory. We also discuss other effects caused by vorticity including the chiral vortical effect and rotation-induced phase transitions.
Relativistic hydrodynamics dual to Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity in asymptotic $\textrm{AdS}_5$ space is under study. To linear order in the amplitude of the fluid velocity and temperature, we derive the fluid's stress-energy tensor via an all-order resummation of the derivative terms. Each order is accompanied by new transport coefficients, which all together could be compactly absorbed into two functions of momenta, referred to as viscosity functions. Via inverse Fourier transform, these viscosities appear as memory functions in the constitutive relation between components of the stress-ener…
We review the key steps of the relativistic fluid dynamics formalism with spin degrees of freedom initiated recently. We obtain equations of motion of the expansion of the system from the underlying definitions of quantum kinetic theory for the equilibrium phase space distribution functions. We investigate the dynamics of spin polarization of the system in the Bjorken hydrodynamical background.
In a relativistic setting, hydrodynamic calculations which include shear viscosity (which is first order in an expansion in gradients of the flow velocity) are unstable and acausal unless they also include terms to second order in gradients. To date such terms have only been computed in supersymmetric N=4 Super-Yang-Mills theory at infinite coupling. Here we compute these second-order hydrodynamic coefficients in weakly coupled QCD, perturbatively to leading order in the QCD coupling, using kinetic theory. We also compute them in QED and scalar lambda phi^4 theory.
Perturbative expansions, such as the well-known gradient series and the recently proposed slow-roll expansion, have been recently used to investigate the emergence of hydrodynamic behavior in systems undergoing Bjorken flow. In this paper we determine for the first time the large order behavior of these perturbative expansions in relativistic hydrodynamics in the case of Gubser flow. While both series diverge, the slow-roll series can provide a much better overall description of the system's dynamics than the gradient expansion when both series are truncated at low orders. The truncated slow-r…
We study relativistic hydrodynamics in the presence of a non vanishing spin chemical potential. Using a variety of techniques we carry out an exhaustive analysis, and identify the constitutive relations for the stress tensor and spin current in such a setup, allowing us to write the hydrodynamic equations of motion to second order in derivatives. We then solve the equations of motion in a perturbative setup and find surprisingly good agreement with measurements of global $Λ$-hyperon polarization carried out at RHIC.
Recently there have been significant interests in the spin hydrodynamic generation phenomenon from multiple disciplines of physics. Such phenomenon arises from global polarization effect of microscopic spin by macroscopic fluid rotation and is expected to occur in the hot quark-gluon fluid (the ``subatomic swirl'') created in relativistic nuclear collisions. This was indeed discovered in experiments which however revealed an intriguing puzzle: a polarization difference between particles and anti-particles. We suggest a novel application of a general connection between rotation and magnetic fie…
The gradient-flow operator product expansion for QCD current correlators including operators up to mass dimension four is calculated through NNLO. This paves an alternative way for efficient lattice evaluations of hadronic vacuum polarization functions. In addition, flow-time evolution equations for flowed composite operators are derived. Their explicit form for the non-trivial dimension-four operators of QCD is given through order $α_s^3$.
We derive a Cooper-Frye type spin polarization formula for Dirac fermions at local thermal equilibrium described by a grand canonical ensemble specified by temperature, fluid velocity, chemical potential, and spin potential. We discuss the physical meaning of different contributions to spin polarization and compare them with previous works. The present formula provides machinery to convert the spin potential computed in, e.g., relativistic spin hydrodynamics to the spin polarization observable in, e.g., heavy-ion collisions.
We analytically investigate hydrodynamic attractor solutions in both Müller-Israel-Stewart (MIS) and kinetic theories in a viscous fluid system undergoing a Hubble expansion with a fixed expansion rate. We show that the gradient expansion for the MIS theory and the Chapman-Enskog expansion for the Boltzmann equation within the relaxation time approximation are factorially divergent and obtain hydrodynamic attractor solutions by applying the Borel resummation technique to those asymptotic divergent series. In both theories, we find that the hydrodynamic attractor solutions are globally attracti…
We derive relativistic hydrodynamic equations with a dynamical spin degree of freedom on the basis of an entropy-current analysis. The first and second laws of local thermodynamics constrain possible structures of the constitutive relations including a spin current and the antisymmetric part of the (canonical) energy-momentum tensor. Solving the obtained hydrodynamic equations within the linear-mode analysis, we find spin-diffusion modes, indicating that spin density is damped out after a characteristic time scale controlled by transport coefficients introduced in the antisymmetric part of the…
