Conformal magnetic effect at the edge: a numerical study in scalar QED

Abstract

Quantum polarization effects associated with the conformal anomaly in a static magnetic field background may generate a transverse electric current in the vacuum. The current may be produced either in an unbounded curved spacetime or in a flat spacetime in a physically bounded system. In both cases, the magnitude of the electric current is proportional to the beta-function associated with renormalization of the electric charge. In our article, we investigate the electric current density induced by the magnetic field in the vicinity of a Dirichlet boundary in the scalar QED. Using first-principle lattice simulations we show that the electric current, generated by this `conformal magnetic effect at the edge' (CMEE), is well described by the conformal anomaly provided the conformal symmetry is classically unbroken. Outside of the conformal limit, the current density is characterized by an anomalous power law near the edge of the system and by an exponential suppression of the current far away from the edge.

arXiv comment7 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (13)

• The Chiral Magnetic Effect
• The Chiral Magnetic Effect and Anomaly-Induced Transport
• Quantum Anomalies in Dense Matter
• Optimized Verlet-like algorithms for molecular dynamics simulations
• Macroscopic Effects of the Quantum Trace Anomaly
• Anomalous Transport from Kubo Formulae
• Conformal Anomalies and the Gravitational Effective Action: The $TJJ$ Correlator for a Dirac Fermion
• A Nernst current from the conformal anomaly in Dirac and Weyl semimetals
• Anomalous Transport Due to the Conformal Anomaly
• Exact Correlators from Conformal Ward Identities in Momentum Space and the Perturbative $TJJ$ Vertex
• Anomalous Transport in Holographic Boundary Conformal Field Theories
• Weyl Anomaly Induced Current in Boundary Quantum Field Theories
• Study of the Coulomb-Higgs transition in the Abelian Higgs Model

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Thermal transport, geometry, and anomalies
• Direct measurement of a beta function and an indirect check of the Schwinger effect near the boundary in Dirac-Weyl semimetals
• Anomalous Gravitational TTT Vertex, Temperature Inhomogeneity, and Pressure Anisotropy
• Anomalous Current Due to Weyl Anomaly for Conformal Field Theory
• Anomalous Luttinger equivalence between temperature and curved spacetime: From black hole's atmosphere to thermal quenches
• Note on anomalous currents for a free theory
• Holographic Anomalous Chiral Current Near a Boundary
• Holographic Anomalous Current at a Finite Temperature
• Enhancement of Anomalous Boundary Current by High Temperature