Thermoelectric response of a hot and weakly magnetized anisotropic QCD medium

TL;DR

This study investigates thermoelectric effects, specifically the Seebeck and Nernst coefficients, in a weakly magnetized, anisotropic quark-gluon plasma using kinetic theory and a quasiparticle model, revealing temperature and anisotropy dependencies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of thermoelectric responses in a weakly magnetized QCD medium with anisotropy, incorporating medium-dependent quark masses from thermal QCD.

Findings

Seebeck and Nernst coefficients decrease with temperature and anisotropy.

Nernst effect is significantly weaker than Seebeck effect.

Mode switching causes smaller percentage changes in Nernst coefficients.

Abstract

We have studied the Seebeck and Nernst coefficients of a weakly magnetized hot QCD medium having a weak momentum anisotropy within the kinetic theory approach. The thermal medium effects have been incorporated in the framework of a quasi-particle model where the medium dependent mass of the quark has been calculated using perturbative thermal QCD in the presence of a weak magnetic field which leads to different masses for the left ($L$) and right ($R$) handed chiral quark modes. We have found that the Seebeck and Nernst coefficient magnitudes for the individual quark flavors as well as for the composite medium are decreasing functions of temperature and decreasing functions of anisotropy strength. The Nernst coefficient magnitudes are about an order of magnitude smaller than their Seebeck counterparts, indicating the Seebeck effect constitutes a stronger response than the Nernst effect. The average percentage change corresponding to switching between quasiparticle modes ($L\to R$ or $R\to L$) is an order of magnitude smaller for Nernst coefficients, compared to the Seebeck coefficients.