Stability analysis of first order hydrodynamics as IR effective theory

3 Jul 2026, 09:30
30m

Speaker

Atsuhisa Ota (Chongqing University)

Description

In this talk we discuss the mode structure of general U(1)-charged first-order relativistic hydrodynamics, formulated within an effective field theory for dissipative fluids in flat Minkowski spacetime. Although first-order relativistic hydrodynamics is known to be ill-posed as a system of partial differential equations, we argue that this conclusion is potentially misleading because hydrodynamics is not a fundamental theory. We derive the most general quadratic action for hydrodynamic modes, including stochastic noise, and analyze the resulting dispersion relations within a controlled gradient expansion. We then show that frame-invariant combinations of hydrodynamic transport coefficients fix the first-order dispersion relations in the low-energy limit, making the mode analysis manifestly independent of the choice of hydrodynamic frame. Assuming local Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) symmetry and unitarity of the underlying UV theory, we find that first-order hydrodynamics is stable provided the enthalpy density is positive.

Author

Atsuhisa Ota (Chongqing University)

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