Lectures on non-equilibrium effective field theories and fluctuating hydrodynamics

Understand

We review recent progress in developing effective field theories (EFTs) for non-equilibrium processes at finite temperature, including a new formulation of fluctuating hydrodynamics, and a new proof of the second law of thermodynamics.

• There are a number of new elements in formulating EFTs for such systems.
• Firstly, the nature of IR variables is very different from those of a system in equilibrium or near the vacuum.
• Secondly, while all static properties of an equilibrium system can in principle be extracted from the partition function, there appears no such quantity which can capture all non-equilibrium properties.