On the chiral separation effect in a slab

Abstract

We study the influence of boundaries on chiral effects in hot dense relativistic spinor matter in a strong magnetic field which is transverse to bounding planes. The most general set of boundary conditions ensuring the confinement of matter within the bounding planes is considered. We find that, in thermal equilibrium, the nondissipative axial current along the magnetic field is induced, depending on chemical potential and temperature, as well as on a choice of boundary conditions. As temperature increases from zero to large values, a stepwise behaviour of the axial current density as a function of chemical potential is changed to a smooth one; the choice of a boundary condition can facilitate either amplification or diminution of the chiral separation effect. This points at a significant role of boundaries for physical systems with hot dense magnetized relativistic spinor matter, e.g., compact stars, heavy-ion collisions, novel materials known as Dirac and Weyl semimetals.