Propagation Speeds of Relativistic Conformal Particles from a Generalized Relaxation Time Approximation.

The propagation speeds of excitations are a crucial input in the modeling of interacting systems of particles. In this paper, we assume the microscopic physics is described by a kinetic theory for massless particles, which is approximated by a generalized relaxation time approximation (RTA) where the relaxation time depends on the energy of the particles involved. We seek a solution of the kinetic equation by assuming a parameterized one-particle distribution function (1-pdf) which generalizes the Chapman-Enskog (Ch-En) solution to the RTA.

Field Theory Approaches to Relativistic Hydrodynamics.

Just as non-relativistic fluids, oftentimes we find relativistic fluids in situations where random fluctuations cannot be ignored, with thermal and turbulent fluctuations being the most relevant examples. Because of the theory's inherent nonlinearity, fluctuations induce deep and complex changes in the dynamics of the system. The Martin-Siggia-Rose technique is a powerful tool that allows us to translate the original hydrodynamic problem into a quantum field theory one, thus taking advantage of the progress in the treatment of quantum fields out of equilibrium.