Planckian dissipation from classical hydrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper explores how classical hydrodynamics imposes a Planckian limit on quantum systems, linking quantum fluctuation-dissipation relations with classical behavior at low temperatures.

Contribution

It demonstrates that maintaining a classical hydrodynamic description at low temperatures necessitates a Planckian relaxation rate, connecting quantum bounds to classical hydrodynamics.

Findings

Interior of the light cone splits into classical and quantum regions.

Classical region satisfies fluctuation-dissipation relation.

Planckian diffusion constant emerges as a classical requirement.

Abstract

In this work we ask what the self-consistency of a classical hydrodynamic description imposes on a quantum system. The quantum fluctuation-dissipation theorem, when read in the time domain, acts as a blurring of the fine details of the correlation functions on a Plankian time-scale. We track this blurring along rays inside the light cone for three phenomenological hydrodynamic equations -- diffusion, telegraph and diffusive-telegraph -- and find that the interior of the cone splits into a classical region, where correlation and response satisfy the classical fluctuation-dissipation relation, and a quantum region, where they deviate sharply from it. Preserving a finite classical region as the temperature is lowered forces the effective relaxation rate to be at least Planckian, recovering bounds on diffusivity, equilibration time and shear viscosity. In this way, Planckian scaling of the diffusion constant emerges not as a quantum constraint on microscopic dynamics, but as the price a system pays to remain describable by classical hydrodynamics down to low temperatures.