Nonlinear chiral kinetic theory

Abstract

From quantum field theory, we derive the chiral kinetic theory involving nonlinear quantum corrections coupled with spacetime-dependent electromagnetic fields and fluid velocity gradients. An equilibrium Wigner function determined by the kinetic equation verifies the nondissipativeness of the charge induced by the magneto-vortical coupling. We reveal that this nonlinear chiral kinetic theory is consistent with the one-loop Euler--Heisenberg effective theory, indicating an indirect evidence of the trace anomaly in the kinetic theory. We also argue a potential issue on the regularization, and demonstrate the availability of the point-splitting regularization in the nonlinear chiral kinetic theory.