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)
Focus
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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