Chiral Waves on the Fermi-Dirac Sea: Quantum Superfluidity and the Axial Anomaly

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that axial anomaly induces a relativistic quantum superfluid state in massless fermions, revealing gapless chiral density waves and their implications for quantum field theory and materials science.

Contribution

It introduces a novel superfluid interpretation of the axial anomaly, deriving a local bosonic effective action, and connects these phenomena to observable effects like the Chiral Magnetic Wave.

Findings

Existence of a gapless Chiral Density Wave (CDW) mode due to anomaly.

Effective action coincides with the Schwinger model in 2D.

Chiral Magnetic Wave acquires a mass gap in magnetic fields.

Abstract

We show that as a result of the axial anomaly, massless fermions at zero temperature define a relativistic quantum superfluid. The anomaly pole implies the existence of a gapless Chiral Density Wave (CDW), i.e. an axion-like acoustic mode of an irrotational and dissipationless Hamiltonian perfect fluid, that is a correlated fermion/anti-fermion pair excitation of the Fermi-Dirac sea. In $D\!=\!2$ dimensions the chiral superfluid effective action coincides with that of the Schwinger model as $e\rightarrow 0$, and the CDW acoustic mode is precisely the Schwinger boson. Since this identity holds also at zero chiral chemical potential, the Dirac vacuum itself may be viewed as a quantum superfluid state. The CDW collective boson is a $U(1)$ chiral phase field, which is gapless as a result of a novel, non-linear realization of Goldstone's theorem, extended to this case of symmetry breaking by an anomaly. A new local form of the axial anomaly bosonic effective action in any $D$ even spacetime is given, consistent with superfluidity, and its quantization is shown to be required by the anomalous Schwinger terms in fermion current commutators. In QED$_4$ this collective Goldstone mode appears as a massless pole in the axial anomaly triangle diagram, and is responsible for the macroscopic non-dissipative currents of the Chiral Magnetic and Chiral Separation Effects, as well as the Anomalous Hall Effect. In a constant uniform magnetic field an exact dimensional reduction from $D\!=\!4$ to $D\!=\!2$ occurs and the collective $e^+e^-$ CDW chiral pair excitation propagating along the magnetic field direction is a Chiral Magnetic Wave, which acquires a mass gap $M^2\!=\! e^{3}B/2\pi^{2}$. Possible realizations and tests of the theory of collective bosonic excitations due to the anomaly in Dirac/Weyl materials are briefly discussed.