Quantum Field Theory of Fluids

Abstract

The quantum theory of fields is largely based on studying perturbations around non-interacting, or free, field theories, which correspond to a collection of quantum-mechanical harmonic oscillators. The quantum theory of an ordinary fluid is `freer', in the sense that the non-interacting theory also contains an infinite collection of quantum-mechanical free particles, corresponding to vortex modes. By computing a variety of correlation functions at tree- and loop-level, we give evidence that a quantum perfect fluid can be consistently formulated as a low-energy, effective field theory. We speculate that the quantum behaviour is radically different to both classical fluids and quantum fields, with interesting physical consequences for fluids in the low temperature regime.

Comments: 5 pages, 2 figures and 1 table. v2: Added references. v3: Changed title to match published version