Thermodynamic Equilibrium of Massless Fermions with Vorticity, Chirality and Electromagnetic Field

Abstract

We present a study of the thermodynamics of the massless free Dirac field at equilibrium with axial charge, angular momentum and external electromagnetic field to assess the interplay between chirality, vorticity and electromagnetic field in relativistic fluids. After discussing the general features of global thermodynamic equilibrium in quantum relativistic statistical mechanics, we calculate the thermal expectation values. Axial imbalance and electromagnetic field are included non-perturbatively by using the exact solutions of the Dirac equation, while a perturbative expansion is carried out in thermal vorticity. It is shown that the chiral vortical effect and the axial vortical effect are not affected by a constant homogeneous electromagnetic field.