Relaxation terms for anomalous hydrodynamic transport in Weyl semimetals from kinetic theory

Abstract

We consider as a model of Weyl semimetal thermoelectric transport a (3 + 1)-dimensional charged, relativistic and relaxed fluid with a U(1)V × U(1)A chiral anomaly. We take into account all possible mixed energy, momentum, electric and chiral charge relaxations, and discover which are compatible with electric charge conservation, Onsager reciprocity and a finite DC conductivity. We find that all relaxations respecting these constraints necessarily render the system open and violate the second law of thermodynamics. We then demonstrate how the relaxations we have found arise from kinetic theory and a modified relaxation time approximation. Our results lead to DC conductivities that differ from those found in the literature opening the path to experimental verification.