Chiral effects in astrophysics and cosmology

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in understanding how quantum chiral effects influence large-scale astrophysical and cosmological phenomena, highlighting their roles in magnetic fields, particle asymmetries, and gravitational waves.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of chiral effects in astrophysics and cosmology, including theoretical frameworks and recent observational implications.

Findings

Chiral effects impact pulsar kicks and magnetar formation.

Chiral phenomena contribute to primordial magnetic field generation.

Chiral gravitational waves are relevant in early Universe cosmology.

Abstract

The microscopic quantum nature of elementary particles, chirality, leads to macroscopic phenomena like the chiral anomaly, chiral magnetic effect, and chiral plasma instability. We review recent progress of the studies of these chiral effects in high-energy astrophysics, such as pulsar kicks, magnetars, and core-collapse supernovae, and early Universe cosmology, such as the primordial magnetic field, baryogenesis, and chiral gravitational waves. We also provide a pedagogical introduction to the chiral effects and low-energy effective theories to describe them in and out of equilibrium -- the chiral (magneto)hydrodynamics, chiral kinetic theory, and chiral radiation transport theory for neutrinos.