Chiral anomaly in Euler fluid and Beltrami flow

Abstract

Abstract We show that barotropic flows of a perfect, charged, classical fluid exhibit an anomaly analogous to the chiral anomaly known in quantum field theories with Dirac fermions. A prominent effect of the chiral anomaly is the transport electric current in the fluid at equilibrium with the chiral reservoir. We find that it is also a property of celebrated Beltrami flows — stationary solutions of the Euler equation with an extensive helicity.