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Description
Chiral symmetry and its anomalous and spontaneous breaking play an important role

in particle physics, where it explains the origin of pion and hadron mass hierarchy

among other things.

Despite its microscopic origin chirality may also lead to observable effects

in macroscopic physical systems -- relativistic plasmas made of chiral

(spin-$\frac{1}{2}$)

Chiral symmetry and its anomalous and spontaneous breaking play an important role

in particle physics, where it explains the origin of pion and hadron mass hierarchy

among other things.

Despite its microscopic origin chirality may also lead to observable effects

in macroscopic physical systems -- relativistic plasmas made of chiral

(spin-$\frac{1}{2}$) particles.

Such plasmas are called \textit{chiral}.

The effects include non-dissipative currents in external fields that could be present

even in quasi-equilibrium, such as the chiral magnetic (CME) and separation (CSE)

effects, as well as a number of inherently chiral collective modes

called the chiral magnetic (CMW) and vortical (CVW) waves.

Applications of chiral plasmas are truly interdisciplinary, ranging from

hot plasma filling the early Universe, to dense matter in neutron stars,

to electronic band structures in Dirac and Weyl semimetals, to quark-gluon plasma

produced in heavy-ion collisions.

The main focus of this dissertation is a search for traces of chiral physics

in the spectrum of collective modes in chiral plasmas.

I start from relativistic chiral kinetic theory and derive

first- and second-order chiral hydrodynamics.

Then I establish key features of an equilibrium state that describes many

physical chiral systems and use it to find the full spectrum of collective modes

in high-temperature and high-density cases.

Finally, I consider in detail the fate of the two inherently chiral waves, namely

the CMW and the CVW, and determine their detection prospects.

The main results of this dissertation are the formulation of a fully covariant

dissipative chiral hydrodynamics and the calculation of the spectrum of collective

modes in chiral plasmas.

It is found that the dissipative effects and dynamical electromagnetism play

an important role in most cases.

In particular, it is found that both the CMW and the CVW are heavily damped by the usual

Ohmic dissipation in charged plasmas and the diffusion effects in neutral plasmas.

These findings prompt a search for new physical observables in heavy-ion collisions,

as well as a revision of potential applications of chiral theories in

cosmology and solid-state physics.
ContributorsRybalka, Denys (Author) / Shovkovy, Igor (Thesis advisor) / Lunardini, Cecilia (Committee member) / Timmes, Francis (Committee member) / Vachaspati, Tanmay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
In this dissertation, I present the results from my recent

investigations into the interactions involving topological defects, such as

magnetic monopoles and strings, that may have been produced in the early

universe. I performed numerical studies on the interactions of twisted

monopole-antimonopole pairs in the 't Hooft-Polyakov model

In this dissertation, I present the results from my recent

investigations into the interactions involving topological defects, such as

magnetic monopoles and strings, that may have been produced in the early

universe. I performed numerical studies on the interactions of twisted

monopole-antimonopole pairs in the 't Hooft-Polyakov model for a range of

values of the scalar to vector mass ratio. Sphaleron solution predicted by

Taubes was recovered, and I mapped out its energy and size as functions of

parameters. I also looked into the production, and decay modes of $U(1)$ gauge

and global strings. I demonstrated that strings can be produced upon evolution

of gauge wavepackets defined within a certain region of parameter space. The

numerical exploration of the decay modes of cosmic string loops led to the

conclusions that string loops emit particle radiation primarily due to kink

collisions, and that their decay time due to these losses is proportional to

$L^p$, where $L$ is the loop length and $p \approx 2$. In contrast, the decay

time due to gravitational radiation scales in proportion to $L$, and I

concluded that particle emission is the primary energy loss mechanism for loops

smaller than a critical length scale, while gravitational losses dominate for

larger loops. In addition, I analyzed the decay of cosmic global string loops

due to radiation of Goldstone bosons and massive scalar ($\chi$) particles.

The length of loops I studied ranges from 200-1000 times the width of the

string core. I found that the lifetime of a loop is approximately $1.4L$. The

energy spectrum of Goldstone boson radiation has a $k^{-1}$ fall off, where $k$

is the wavenumber, and a sharp peak at $k\approx m_\chi/2$, where $m_\chi$ is

the mass of $\chi$. The latter is a new feature and implies a peak at high

energies (MeV-GeV) in the cosmological distribution of QCD axions.
ContributorsSaurabh, Ayush (Author) / Vachaspati, Tanmay (Thesis advisor) / Lebed, Richard (Committee member) / Baumgart, Matthew (Committee member) / Keeler, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
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Description

In a hypothetical Grand Unified Theory, magnetic monopoles are a particle which would act as a charge carrier for the magnetic force. Evidence of magnetic monopoles has yet to be found and based off of their relatively high mass (4-10 TeV) will be difficult to find with current technology. The

In a hypothetical Grand Unified Theory, magnetic monopoles are a particle which would act as a charge carrier for the magnetic force. Evidence of magnetic monopoles has yet to be found and based off of their relatively high mass (4-10 TeV) will be difficult to find with current technology. The goal of my thesis is to mathematically model the magnetic monopole by finding numerical solutions to the equations of motion. In my analysis, I consider four cases: kinks, cosmic strings, global monopoles, and magnetic monopoles. I will also study electromagnetic gauge fields to prepare to include gauge fields in the magnetic monopole case. Numerical solutions are found for the cosmic string and global monopole cases. As expected, the energy is high at small distance r and drops off as r goes to infinity. Currently numerical solutions are being worked towards for electromagnetic gauge fields and the magnetic monopole case.

ContributorsBrown, Taryn (Author) / Vachaspati, Tanmay (Thesis director) / Keeler, Cynthia (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor)
Created2022-05