New applications of the chiral anomaly

Abstract

We describe consequences of the chiral anomaly in the theory of quantum wires, the (quantum) Hall effect, and of a four-dimensional cousin of the Hall effect. We explain which aspects of conductance quantization are related to the chiral anomaly. The four-dimensional analogue of the Hall effect involves the axion field, whose time derivative can be interpreted as a (space-time dependent) difference of chemical potentials of left-handed and right-handed charged fermions. Our four-dimensional analogue of the Hall effect may play a significant role in explaining the origin of large magnetic fields in the (early) universe.