Correspondence between hydrodynamic frames, transport coefficients, and hydrodynamic modes in relativistic fluids

Abstract

The choice of hydrodynamic frame directly influences the numerical values of transport coefficients in relativistic dissipative hydrodynamics. We derive the exact transformation between the Eckart and Landau--Lifshitz frames and show that their thermal conductivities are related by an enthalpy-dependent factor. Using a baryon-rich relativistic fluid described by a Boltzmann nucleon gas equation of state, we find that the Landau--Lifshitz thermal conductivity is suppressed relative to the Eckart conductivity, with the difference increasing with temperature and baryon chemical potential. A linearized analysis of sound propagation demonstrates that the sound attenuation coefficient remains identical in both frames, confirming the frame invariance of physical observables. Our results show that the frame dependence of transport coefficients reflects only the different decomposition of dissipative effects into heat-flow and diffusion currents, while the underlying transport physics remains unchanged. These findings underscore the importance of specifying the hydrodynamic frame when comparing transport coefficients from heavy-ion collisions, lattice QCD, and kinetic-theory calculations.