Phenomenology of non-relativistic parity-violating hydrodynamics in 2+1 dimensions

Abstract

Parity-violating fluids in two spatial dimensions can appear in a variety of contexts such as liquid crystal films, anyon fluids, and quantum Hall fluids. Nonetheless, the consequences of parity-violation on the solutions to the equations of motion are largely unexplored. In this paper, we explore phenomenological consequences of parity-violation through simple, illustrative examples. Although incompressible velocity fields are essentially unchanged by parity violation, we discuss examples where parity violation plays a role at boundaries, or in the dynamics of temperature. We then discuss new types of compressible flows which only exist in a parity-violating fluid, including new sound waves, and solitons in the dissipationless limit. We conclude with a discussion of some curious features in Rayleigh-Bénard convection of a parity-violating fluid.

v2: expanded and published version. 33 pages, 9 figures