Chiral superfluidity of the quark-gluon plasma

Abstract

In this paper we argue that the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma can be considered as a chiral superfluid. The "normal" component of the fluid is the thermalized matter in common sense, while the "superfluid" part consists of long wavelength (chiral) fermionic states moving independently. We use several nonperturbative techniques to demonstrate that. First, we analyze the fermionic spectrum in the deconfinement phase (Tc < T < 2 Tc) using lattice (overlap) fermions and observe a gap between near-zero modes and the bulk of the spectrum. Second, we use the bosonization procedure with a finite cut-off and obtain a dynamical axion-like field out of the chiral fermionic modes. Third, we use relativistic hydrodynamics for macroscopic description of the effective theory obtained after the bosonization. Finally, solving the hydrodynamic equations in gradient expansion, we find that in the presence of external electromagnetic fields the motion of the "superfluid" component gives rise to the chiral magnetic, chiral electric and dipole wave effects. Latter two effects are specific for a two-component fluid, which provides us with crucial experimental tests of the model.