Electric current induced by an external magnetic field in the presence of electroweak matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how external magnetic fields induce electric currents in fermions interacting with electroweak matter, revealing that massive particles do not generate such currents at equilibrium, while massless fermions exhibit behavior consistent with the chiral magnetic effect.

Contribution

The study clarifies the conditions under which electroweak interactions influence magnetic-field-induced currents, especially distinguishing between massive and massless fermions in equilibrium.

Findings

Induced current vanishes for massive fermions with anomalous magnetic moments at equilibrium.

Electroweak interactions do not alter the current for massless fermions, aligning with the chiral magnetic effect.

Results are consistent with and extend previous theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We study the generation of an electric current, along the external magnetic field, of fermions, interacting by parity violating electroweak forces with background matter. First, we discuss the situation of massive particles with nonzero anomalous magnetic moments. We show that the induced current is vanishing for such particles in the state of equilibrium. Then, the case of massless fermions is studied. We demonstrate that the contribution of the electroweak interaction is washed out from the expression for the current, which turns out to coincide with the prediction of the chiral magnetic effect. Our results are compared with findings of other authors.