Effective field theory for hydrodynamics: Thermodynamics, and the derivative expansion

Sergei Dubovsky, Lam Hui, Alberto Nicolis, and Dam Thanh Son

Phys. Rev. D 85, 085029 – Published 26 April 2012

Abstract

We consider the low-energy effective field theory describing the infrared dynamics of nondissipative fluids. We extend previous work to accommodate conserved charges, and we clarify the matching between field-theory variables and thermodynamical ones. We discuss the systematics of the derivative expansion, for which field theory offers a conceptually clear and technically neat scheme. As an example, we compute the correction to the sound-wave dispersion relation coming from a sample second-order term. This formalism forms the basis for a study of anomalies in hydrodynamics via effective field theory, which is initiated in a companion paper.

Received 22 December 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.85.085029

Authors & Affiliations

Sergei Dubovsky^1,*, Lam Hui^2,†, Alberto Nicolis^2,‡, and Dam Thanh Son^3,§

¹Physics Department and Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA
²Physics Department and Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
³Institute for Nuclear Theory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA

^*dubovsky@nyu.edu
^†lhui@astro.columbia.edu
^‡nicolis@phys.columbia.edu
^§son@phys.washington.edu

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Vol. 85, Iss. 8 — 15 April 2012

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