World-line formulation of chiral kinetic theory in topological background gauge fields

Abstract

In heavy-ion collisions, an interesting question of phenomenological relevance is how the chiral imbalance generated at early times persists through a fluctuating background of sphalerons in addition to other "non-anomalous" interactions with the QGP. To address this question, we construct a relativistic chiral kinetic theory using the world-line formulation of quantum field theory. We outline how Berry's phase arises in this framework, and how its effects can be clearly distinguished from those arising from the chiral anomaly. We further outline how this framework can be matched to classical statistical simulations at early times and to anomalous chiral hydrodynamics at late times.