Shear and bulk viscosities of a photon gas at low temperature

Abstract

We explore the viscosities of a photon gas by means of the Euler-Heisenberg effective theory and quantum electrodynamics at zero electron chemical potential. We find parametric estimates that show a very large shear viscosity and an extremely small bulk viscosity (reflecting the very weak coupling simultaneously with a very approximate dilatation invariance). The system is of some interest because it exemplifies very neatly the influence of the breaking of scale invariance on the bulk viscosity.

v2: Typos corrected, one reference updated, one figure added

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Shear viscosity over entropy density ratio with extended quasi-particles
• Viscosities of Gluon Dominated QGP Model within Relativistic Non-Abelian Hydrodynamics