Absence of Energy Currents in an Equilibrium State and Chiral Anomalies

Journal Article · 06 August 2019 · Physical Review Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.060601 · OSTI ID:1600555

Kapustin, Anton ^[1]; Spodyneiko, Lev ^[1]

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1. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)

Previously, Bloch showed that in a system of interacting nonrelativistic particles the net particle-number current must vanish in any equilibrium state. Bloch’s argument does not generalize easily to the energy current. We devise an alternative argument which proves the vanishing of the net energy currents in equilibrium states of lattice systems as well as systems of nonrelativistic particles with finite-range potential interactions. We discuss some applications of these results. Specifically, we show that neither a one-dimensional (1D) lattice system nor a 1D system of nonrelativistic particles with finite-range potential interactions can flow to a conformal field theory with unequal left-moving and right-moving central charges.

• Research Organization: California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0011632
• OSTI ID: 1600555
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1547989
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 123, Issue 6; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English