Weyl Anomaly Induced Current in Boundary Quantum Field Theories

Chong-Sun Chu (National Center for Theoretical Sciences, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan; Department of Physics, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan) ; Rong-Xin Miao (National Center for Theoretical Sciences, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan; School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China)

We show that when an external magnetic field parallel to the boundary is applied, the Weyl anomaly gives rises to a new anomalous current in the vicinity of the boundary. The induced current is a magnetization current in origin: the movement of the virtual charges near the boundary give rise to a nonuniform magnetization of the vacuum and hence a magnetization current. Unlike other previously studied anomalous current phenomena such as the chiral magnetic effect or the chiral vortical effect, this induced current does not rely on the presence of a material system and can occur in vacuum. Similar to the Casimir effect, our discovered phenomenon arises from the effect of the boundary on the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum. However this induced current is purely quantum mechanical and has no classical limit. We briefly comment on how this induced current may be observed experimentally.

{
  "_oai": {
    "updated": "2022-03-04T10:41:44Z", 
    "id": "oai:repo.scoap3.org:44282", 
    "sets": [
      "PRL"
    ]
  }, 
  "authors": [
    {
      "raw_name": "Chong-Sun Chu", 
      "affiliations": [
        {
          "country": "Taiwan", 
          "value": "National Center for Theoretical Sciences, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan"
        }, 
        {
          "country": "Taiwan", 
          "value": "Department of Physics, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan"
        }
      ], 
      "surname": "Chu", 
      "given_names": "Chong-Sun", 
      "full_name": "Chu, Chong-Sun"
    }, 
    {
      "raw_name": "Rong-Xin Miao", 
      "affiliations": [
        {
          "country": "Taiwan", 
          "value": "National Center for Theoretical Sciences, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan"
        }, 
        {
          "country": "China", 
          "value": "School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China"
        }
      ], 
      "surname": "Miao", 
      "given_names": "Rong-Xin", 
      "full_name": "Miao, Rong-Xin"
    }
  ], 
  "titles": [
    {
      "source": "APS", 
      "title": "Weyl Anomaly Induced Current in Boundary Quantum Field Theories"
    }
  ], 
  "dois": [
    {
      "value": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251602"
    }
  ], 
  "publication_info": [
    {
      "journal_volume": "121", 
      "journal_title": "Physical Review Letters", 
      "material": "article", 
      "journal_issue": "25", 
      "year": 2018
    }
  ], 
  "$schema": "http://repo.scoap3.org/schemas/hep.json", 
  "acquisition_source": {
    "date": "2020-06-29T15:34:02.159309", 
    "source": "APS", 
    "method": "APS", 
    "submission_number": "bca49440b8c511eaad8602163e01809a"
  }, 
  "page_nr": [
    6
  ], 
  "license": [
    {
      "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", 
      "license": "CC-BY-4.0"
    }
  ], 
  "copyright": [
    {
      "statement": "Published by the American Physical Society", 
      "year": "2018"
    }
  ], 
  "control_number": "44282", 
  "record_creation_date": "2018-12-18T16:15:07.127305", 
  "_files": [
    {
      "checksum": "md5:4513c0043e13141fd19bf254de505376", 
      "filetype": "pdf", 
      "bucket": "532e6769-6aa9-4db6-92ac-e9648d17ba1b", 
      "version_id": "86b65465-9e44-4316-aaa7-4a2788125a41", 
      "key": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251602.pdf", 
      "size": 200722
    }, 
    {
      "checksum": "md5:d988436709feb81bcce16768f8e6944d", 
      "filetype": "xml", 
      "bucket": "532e6769-6aa9-4db6-92ac-e9648d17ba1b", 
      "version_id": "26e43d51-bac6-4e69-911d-d5affe604b40", 
      "key": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251602.xml", 
      "size": 102690
    }
  ], 
  "collections": [
    {
      "primary": "HEP"
    }, 
    {
      "primary": "Citeable"
    }, 
    {
      "primary": "Published"
    }
  ], 
  "arxiv_eprints": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "hep-th", 
        "cond-mat.other", 
        "gr-qc"
      ], 
      "value": "1803.03068"
    }
  ], 
  "abstracts": [
    {
      "source": "APS", 
      "value": "We show that when an external magnetic field parallel to the boundary is applied, the Weyl anomaly gives rises to a new anomalous current in the vicinity of the boundary. The induced current is a magnetization current in origin: the movement of the virtual charges near the boundary give rise to a nonuniform magnetization of the vacuum and hence a magnetization current. Unlike other previously studied anomalous current phenomena such as the chiral magnetic effect or the chiral vortical effect, this induced current does not rely on the presence of a material system and can occur in vacuum. Similar to the Casimir effect, our discovered phenomenon arises from the effect of the boundary on the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum. However this induced current is purely quantum mechanical and has no classical limit. We briefly comment on how this induced current may be observed experimentally."
    }
  ], 
  "imprints": [
    {
      "date": "2018-12-18", 
      "publisher": "APS"
    }
  ]
}
Published on:
18 December 2018
Publisher:
APS
Published in:
Physical Review Letters , Volume 121 (2018)
Issue 25
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251602
arXiv:
1803.03068
Copyrights:
Published by the American Physical Society
Licence:
CC-BY-4.0

Fulltext files: