English

Topological modes in relativistic hydrodynamics

High Energy Physics - Theory 2021-03-03 v2 Other Condensed Matter

Abstract

We show that gapless modes in relativistic hydrodynamics could become topologically nontrivial by weakly breaking the conservation of energy momentum tensor in a specific way. This system has topological semimetal-like crossing nodes in the spectrum of hydrodynamic modes that require the protection of a special combination of translational and boost symmetries in two spatial directions. We confirm the nontrivial topology from the existence of an undetermined Berry phase. These energy momentum non-conservation terms could naturally be produced by an external gravitational field that comes from a reference frame change from the original inertial frame, i.e. by fictitious forces in a non-inertial reference frame. This non-inertial frame is the rest frame of an accelerating observer moving along a trajectory of a helix. This suggests that topologically trivial modes could become nontrivial by being observed in a special non-inertial reference frame, and this fact could be verified in laboratories, in principle. Finally, we propose a holographic realization of this system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.13380,
  title  = {Topological modes in relativistic hydrodynamics},
  author = {Yan Liu and Ya-Wen Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.13380},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

8 pages, 2 figures; v2: published version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T15:08:48.919Z