Chiral vortical effect and boundary-induced vortical pumping in finite Weyl systems
Phys. Rev. B 114, 305104 – Published 5 November, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/zq7z-8bpt
Abstract
The chiral vortical effect (CVE)—an axial current driven by rotation in chiral matter—appears in systems ranging from relativistic fluids to Weyl semimetals. We present a quantum treatment of a rotating Weyl fermion in a finite cylinder that reproduces the on-axis current density obtained by Vilenkin in an infinite system, while revealing two additional phenomena. First, we find that the cross-sectional averaged current density vanishes in the thermodynamic limit, establishing that the bulk vortical response is purely a magnetization current. Second, for spin-polarized boundary conditions, we uncover a robust family of chiral modes that transport axial charge, , under rotation by angle , where is the Weyl node chirality and is the number of chiral modes. The pump is independent of temperature, Fermi level, and Weyl velocities, but depends on the UV-sensitive number . These results clarify the quantum structure of the bulk CVE and reveal a boundary-enforced chiral spectral structure underlying vortical response in Weyl systems.