English

The Chiral Anomaly, Dirac and Weyl Semimetals, and Force-Free Magnetic Fields

General Physics 2017-10-11 v2

Abstract

The chiral anomaly is a purely quantum mechanical phenomenon that has a long history dating back to the late 1960s. Surprisingly, it has recently made a macroscopic appearance in condensed matter physics. A brief introduction to the relevant features of this anomaly is given and it is shown that its appearance in condensed matter systems must involve force-free magnetic fields, which may help explain the long current relaxation times in Dirac and Weyl semimetals.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1605.09214,
  title  = {The Chiral Anomaly, Dirac and Weyl Semimetals, and Force-Free Magnetic Fields},
  author = {Gerald E. Marsh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.09214},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

10 pages, 1 figure. Clarifications and minor corrections have been made in this version