Collisions in Chiral Kinetic Theory

TL;DR

This paper develops a Lorentz-invariant chiral kinetic theory including collisions, revealing new contributions to particle currents and demonstrating equilibrium solutions and anomalous transport coefficients.

Contribution

It introduces a covariant formalism for chiral kinetic theory with collisions, incorporating side jumps and deriving conserved quantities and transport coefficients.

Findings

New contribution to particle number current from side jumps

Conserved symmetric stress-energy tensor established

Derived equilibrium solutions and anomalous transport coefficients

Abstract

Using a covariant formalism, we construct a chiral kinetic theory Lorentz invariant to order $\mathcal O(\hbar)$ which includes collisions. We find a new contribution to the particle number current due to the side jumps required by the conservation of angular momentum during collisions. We also find a conserved symmetric stress-energy tensor as well as the $H$-function obeying Boltzmann's $H$-theorem. We demonstrate their use by finding a general equilibrium solution and the values of the anomalous transport coefficients characterizing chiral vortical effect.