Title: The role of anomaly inflow in the theory of chiral quantum fluids
Speaker: Juerg Froehlich (ETH, Zurich and IAS, Princeton)
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2014
Time: 2:30pm-3:30pm
Place: Seminar Room 313, Simons Center
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Abstract:
To start with, I will discuss the electrodynamics of incompressible 2D electron gases exhibiting the quantum Hall effect. The existence of anomalous chiral edge currents is derived from very general principles. Charge conservation is saved by “anomaly inflow” from the bulk to the edge. The role of edge currents in understanding the quantization of the Hall conductance and various transport properties is emphasized. Subsequently, I discuss a higher-dimensional cousin of the Hall effect. The role of the chiral anomaly in four dimensions in deriving the correct equations of magneto hydrodynamics and the interpretation of the axion as a space-time dependent chiral chemical potential are
discussed. I conclude by sketching a mechanism that might explain the origin of cosmic magnetic fields.