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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
A high voltage plasma arc can be created and sustained in air by subjecting the gases to an electric field with high voltage potential, causing ionization. The internal energy of the ionized gases can be transferred to corresponding pressure waves when the matter involved switches between the gaseous and plasma

A high voltage plasma arc can be created and sustained in air by subjecting the gases to an electric field with high voltage potential, causing ionization. The internal energy of the ionized gases can be transferred to corresponding pressure waves when the matter involved switches between the gaseous and plasma states. By pulse-width modulating a transformer driving signal, the transfer of internal electrical energy to resonating pressure waves may be controlled. Audio wave input to the driver signal can then be modulated into the carrier wave and be used to determine the width of each pulse in the plasma, thus reconstructing the audio signal as pressure, or sound waves, as the plasma arc switches on and off. The result will be the audio waveform resonating out of the plasma arc as audible sound, and thus creating a plasma loudspeaker. Theory of operation was tested through construction of a plasma arc speaker, and resultant audio playback was analyzed. This analysis confirmed accurate reproduction of audio signal in audible sound.
ContributorsBoehringer, Brian Thomas (Author) / Roedel, Ronald (Thesis director) / Huffman, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05