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Vorticity-induced effects from Wess-Zumino-Witten terms

Geraint W. Evans1,*, Naoki Yamamoto2,†, and Di-Lun Yang1,3,‡

  • *Contact author: geraint@gate.sinica.edu.tw
  • †Contact author: nyama@rk.phys.keio.ac.jp
  • ‡Contact author: dlyang@phys.sinica.edu.tw
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 036029 – Published 26 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jnlh-ml8m

Abstract

We study vorticity-induced effects arising from the Wess-Zumino-Witten terms for Nambu-Goldstone modes in chiral perturbation theory. We first provide an alternative derivation of the Wess-Zumino-Witten terms in the presence of external vector, axial-vector, and pseudoscalar fields using a derivative expansion of the fermion determinant. We then employ the previously found correspondence in which vorticity is treated as an axial-vector field coupled to Dirac fermions in flat spacetime. Using this, we derive vorticity-induced contributions for Nambu-Goldstone modes in the presence of electromagnetic fields at finite baryon and isospin chemical potentials, including a vorticity-induced current, a magnetic-field-induced angular momentum, and a vorticity-modified photon–pion coupling. We also briefly discuss the phenomenological implications of these vorticity-induced effects.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 036029– Published 26 February, 2026
  • Received 7 November 2025
  • Accepted 28 January 2026
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