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  • Open Access

Quantum dynamics of perfect fluids

Walter D. Goldberger1,* and Petar Tadić2,3,†

  • *Contact author: walter.goldberger@yale.edu
  • †Contact author: petar.tadic@physics.ox.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 125015 – Published 12 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yxpz-ymfh

Abstract

We study the quantum field theory of zero-temperature perfect fluids. Such systems are defined by quantizing a classical field theory of scalar fields ϕI that act as Lagrange coordinates on an internal spatial manifold of fluid configurations. Invariance under volume-preserving diffeomorphisms acting on these scalars implies that the long-wavelength spectrum contains vortex (transverse modes) with an exact ωT=0 dispersion relation. As a consequence, physically interpreting the results obtained via perturbative quantization of this theory has proven to be challenging. In this paper, we show that correlators evaluated in a class of semiclassical (Gaussian) initial states prepared at t=0 are well defined and accessible via perturbation theory. The width of the initial state effectively acts as an infrared regulator without explicitly breaking diffeomorphism invariance of the classical action. As an application, we compute the stress tensor two-point correlators and show that vortex modes give a nontrivial contribution to the response function, nonlocal in both space and time.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 125015– Published 12 June, 2026
  • Received 13 January 2026
  • Accepted 28 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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