Chiral Plasma Instabilities

TL;DR

This paper investigates the unstable collective modes in chiral plasmas caused by asymmetries in fermion chirality, using kinetic theory with Berry curvature, and discusses their implications in astrophysics and heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic theory framework with Berry curvature to analyze chiral plasma instabilities and explores their evolution considering collisions.

Findings

Identification of an unstable mode indicating plasma instability

Analysis of the instability's behavior with collision effects

Discussion of relevance to heavy ion collisions and compact stars

Abstract

We study the collective modes in relativistic electromagnetic or quark-gluon plasmas with an asymmetry between left- and right-handed chiral fermions, based on the recently formulated kinetic theory with Berry curvature corrections. We find that there exists an unstable mode, signaling the presence of a plasma instability. We argue the fate of this "chiral plasma instability" including the effect of collisions, and briefly discuss its relevance in heavy ion collisions and compact stars.