English

Quantum structure of the chiral vortical effect and boundary-induced vortical pumping

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2026-04-03 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

The chiral vortical effect (CVE) -- an axial current driven by rotation in chiral matter -- appears in systems ranging from relativistic fluids to Weyl semimetals, yet its quantum origin remains unclear because existing derivations are semiclassical. We present an exact quantum solution of a rotating Weyl fermion in a finite cylinder. We show that the bulk vortical response is entirely a magnetization current while the current density on the rotation axis remains finite and matches semiclassical predictions. For spin-polarized boundary conditions, we uncover an additional effect beyond the known CVE: a robust family of chiral modes that transport axial charge, ΔQ=χN2Δθ/4π\Delta Q=\chi N^2\,\Delta\theta/4\pi, under rotation by angle Δθ\Delta\theta, where χ\chi is the Weyl node chirality and NN is the number of chiral modes. The pump is independent of temperature, Fermi level and Weyl velocities, but depends on the UV-sensitive number NN. These results establish a fully quantum picture of the CVE and reveal a boundary-enforced chiral spectral structure underlying vortical response in Weyl systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.01293,
  title  = {Quantum structure of the chiral vortical effect and boundary-induced vortical pumping},
  author = {B. Q. Song and Pavan Hosur},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.01293},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages, 3 figures