Viscosity of an ideal relativistic quantum fluid: A perturbative study

Abstract

We show that a quantized ideal fluid will generally exhibit a small but non-zero viscosity due to the backreaction of quantum soundwaves on the background. We use an effective field theory expansion to estimate this viscosity to first order in perturbation theory. We discuss our results, and whether this estimate can be used to obtain a more model-independent estimate of the "quantum bound" on the viscosity of physical systems

Comments: Accepted for publication, Phys.Rev.D. Discussion slightly clarified and extended, references added, error in calculation fixed. COnclusions unchanged