Nuclear Theory / RIKEN Seminar

I will give an overview of our work on developing an effective field theory of dissipative hydrodynamics. The formulation is based on the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, which provides a functional approach that naturally includes dissipation and fluctuations. Hydrodynamics is implemented by introducing suitable degrees of freedom and symmetries. I will then discuss two important by-products. First, the second law of thermodynamics, which in the traditional approach is imposed at phenomenological level, is here obtained from a basic symmetry principle together with constraints from unitarity. Second, I will show consistency with unitarity and causality of the hydrodynamic path-integral at all loops, which leads to the first systematic framework to compute hydrodynamic fluctuations.