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Gravitational Mass Carried by Sound Waves

Angelo Esposito, Rafael Krichevsky, and Alberto Nicolis
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 084501 – Published 1 March 2019
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Abstract

We show that the commonly accepted statement that sound waves do not transport mass is only true at linear order. Using effective field theory techniques, we confirm the result found by Nicolis and Penco [Phys. Rev. B 97, 134516 (2018)] for zero-temperature superfluids, and extend it to the case of solids and ordinary fluids. We show that, in fact, sound waves do carry mass—in particular, gravitational mass. This implies that a sound wave not only is affected by gravity but also generates a tiny gravitational field, an aspect not appreciated thus far. Our findings are valid for nonrelativistic media as well, and could have intriguing experimental implications.

  • Received 29 September 2018
  • Revised 18 December 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.084501

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Interdisciplinary PhysicsFluid DynamicsParticles & FieldsNonlinear Dynamics

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Sound Waves Carry Mass

Published 1 March 2019

Even if you ignore general relativity, sound waves transport a small amount of mass, according to theory.

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Authors & Affiliations

Angelo Esposito1,2,3, Rafael Krichevsky1, and Alberto Nicolis1

  • 1Department of Physics, Center for Theoretical Physics, Columbia University, 538W 120th Street, New York, New York, 10027, USA
  • 2INFN, Sezione di Roma, Piazzale A. Moro 2, I-00185 Rome, Italy
  • 3Theoretical Particle Physics Laboratory, Institute of Physics, EPFL, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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Issue

Vol. 122, Iss. 8 — 1 March 2019

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