Chiral kinetic theory of anomalous transport induced by torsion

Lan-Lan Gao, Sahal Kaushik, Dmitri E. Kharzeev, Evan John Philip

Published 2020-10-14Version 1

In Weyl semimetals subjected to torsion, there are two different kinds of chirality: i) the (coordinate-space) shape of the twisted crystal is chiral, and ii) the momentum space contains chiral quasi-particles. Here we construct a general kinetic theory of anomalous transport using the phase space (coordinate and momentum spaces combined) Berry curvature induced by torsion in Weyl systems. We describe how torsion generates the chiral chemical potential, and thus leads to the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) in the presence of a background magnetic field. We propose to measure the CME current induced by the torsion as a way to detect the anomalous coupling between the coordinate-space and momentum-space chiralities.