The Chiral Magnetic Effect and Anomaly-Induced Transport

Abstract

The Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) is the phenomenon of electric charge separation along the external magnetic field that is induced by the chirality imbalance. The CME is a macroscopic quantum effect - it is a manifestation of the chiral anomaly creating a collective motion in Dirac sea. Because the chirality imbalance is related to the global topology of gauge fields, the CME current is topologically protected and hence non-dissipative even in the presence of strong interactions. As a result, the CME and related quantum phenomena affect the hydrodynamical and transport behavior of systems possessing chiral fermions, from the quark-gluon plasma to chiral materials. The goal of the present review is to provide an elementary introduction into the main ideas underlying the physics of CME, a historical perspective, and a guide to the rapidly growing literature on this topic.

Comments: 48 pages, 5 figures; minor improvements, final version to appear in Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics