paper

Spin tensor and its role in non-equilibrium thermodynamics

arXiv:1807.10994 · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2018.12.016

Abstract

It is shown that the description of a relativistic fluid at local thermodynamic equilibrium depends on the particular quantum stress-energy tensor operator chosen, e.g., the canonical or symmetrized Belinfante stress-energy tensor. We argue that the Belinfante tensor is not appropriate to describe a relativistic fluid whose macroscopic polarization relaxes slowly to thermodynamic equilibrium and that a spin tensor, like the canonical spin tensor, is required. As a consequence, the description of a polarized relativistic fluid involves an extension of relativistic hydrodynamics including a new antisymmetric rank-two tensor as a dynamical field. We show that the canonical and Belinfante tensors lead to different predictions for measurable quantities such as spectrum and polarization of particles produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

arXiv comment9 pages, 1 figure. Final version to appear in Phys. Lett. B

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