Analytic structure of diffusive correlation functions

TL;DR

This paper uses effective field theory techniques to analyze the analytic structure of diffusive correlation functions, revealing loop effects, long-time tails, and implications for diffusion modes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive all-orders analysis of diffusive EFT, confirming previous results and exploring implications for dispersion relations and special loop models.

Findings

Confirmed the analytic structure of diffusive two-point functions.

Identified effects of loop corrections on diffusion modes.

Discussed features of a simplified all-loop diffusion model.

Abstract

Diffusion is a dissipative transport phenomenon ubiquitously present in nature. Its details can now be analysed with modern effective field theory (EFT) techniques that use the closed-time-path (or Schwinger-Keldysh) formalism. We discuss the structure of the diffusive effective action appropriate for the analysis of stochastic or thermal loop effects, responsible for the so-called long-time tails, to all orders. We also elucidate and prove a number of properties of the EFT and use the theory to establish the analytic structure of the $n$-loop contributions to diffusive retarded two-point functions. Our analysis confirms a previously proposed result by Delacr\'{e}taz that used microscopic conformal field theory arguments. Then, we analyse a number of implications of these loop corrections to the dispersion relations of the diffusive mode and new, gapped modes that appear when the EFT is treated as exact. Finally, we discuss certain features of an all-loop model of diffusion that only retains a special subset of $n$-loop `banana' diagrams.