Hall viscosity, spin density, and torsion

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between Hall viscosity, spin density and response to geometric torsion. For the most general effective action for relativistic gapped systems, the presence of non-universal terms implies that there is no relationship between torsion response and Hall viscosity. We also consider free relativistic and non-relativistic microscopic actions and again verify the existence of analogous non-universal couplings. Explicit examples demonstrate that torsion response is unrelated to both Hall viscosity and spin density. We also argue that relativistic gapped theories must have vanishing Hall viscosity in Lorentz invariant vacuums.