The quantum mechanics of a perfect fluid

Abstract: Finite density systems can be described by effective field theories with non-linearly realized space-time symmetries, whose construction resembles that of the QCD chiral lagrangian. Also based on that similarity, one would expect the construction to work equally well classically and quantum mechanically. While that is true for superfluids and solids, one instead finds that for genuine fluids things are made more complicated by the unusual dynamics of their transverse modes, which are not described by a Fock space. Focussing on the incompressible limit in 2+1 dimensions, I illustrate how a consistent quantum mechanical description of a perfect fluid can be obtained by using the known equivalence between the area preserving diffeomorfism group in 2D and $SU(N)$ with $N\to \infty$.

cosmology and nongalactic astrophysicsother condensed matterquantum gasesstrongly correlated electronssuperconductivitygeneral relativity and quantum cosmologyHEP - theory

Audience: researchers in the topic

Carnegie Mellon theoretical physics