A mechanism for anomalous transport in chiral active liquids

TL;DR

This paper develops a microscopic framework explaining how anomalous transport properties like odd viscosity emerge in chiral active fluids through orientation-dependent forces and pair correlation distortions.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic mechanism and stress tensor formulation for anomalous transport in chiral liquids, linking microscopic interactions to macroscopic properties.

Findings

Anomalous transport coefficients relate to transverse intermolecular forces.

Flow induces distortions in pair correlation functions.

Framework explains non-equilibrium transport in chiral systems.

Abstract

Chiral active fluids are known to have anomalous transport properties such as the so-called odd viscosity. In this paper, we provide a microscopic mechanism for how such anomalous transport coefficients can emerge. We construct an Irving-Kirkwood-type stress tensor for chiral liquids and express the transport coefficients in terms of orientation-averaged intermolecular forces and distortions of the pair correlation function induced by a flow field. We then show how anomalous transport properties can be expected naturally due to the presence of a transverse component in the orientation-averaged intermolecular forces and anomalous distortion modes of the pair correlation function between chiral active particles. We anticipate that our work can provide a microscopic framework to explain the transport properties of non-equilibrium chiral systems.