Revisiting relativistic magnetohydrodynamics from quantum electrodynamics

Abstract

We provide a statistical mechanical derivation of relativistic magnetohydrodynamics on the basis of (3 + 1)-dimensional quantum electrodynamics; the system endowed with a magnetic one-form symmetry. The conservation laws and constitutive relations are presented in a manifestly covariant way with respect to the general coordinate transformation. The method of the local Gibbs ensemble (or nonequilibrium statistical operator) combined with the path-integral formula for a thermodynamic functional enables us to obtain exact forms of constitutive relations. Applying the derivative expansion to exact formulas, we derive the first-order constitutive relations for nonlinear relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. Our results for the QED plasma preserving parity and charge-conjugation symmetries are equipped with two electrical resistivities and five (three bulk and two shear) viscosities. We also show that those transport coefficients satisfy the Onsager’s reciprocal relation and a set of inequalities, indicating semi-positivity of the entropy production rate consistent with the local second law of thermodynamics.