Physical Review Research (May 2021)

Hydrodynamic theory of chiral angular momentum generation in metals

  • Hiroshi Funaki,
  • Gen Tatara

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023160
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 2
p. 023160

Abstract

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We present a hydrodynamic theory to describe a chiral electron system with a Weyl spin-orbit interaction on a field-theoretic basis. Evaluating the momentum flux density as a linear response to a driving electric field, we derive an equation of motion for the orbital angular momentum. It is shown that the chiral nature leads to a dynamic bulk angular momentum generation by inducing a global torque as a response to the applied field. The steady-state angular momentum is calculated taking into account rotational viscosity.