Chiral kinetic theory from the on-shell effective theory: derivation of collision terms

Understand

We show that the on-shell effective theory (OSEFT) is the quantum field theory counterpart of a Foldy-Wouthuysen diagonalization of relativistic quantum mechanics for massless fermions.

• Thus, it is free of the Zitterbewegung oscillations that would yield an ill-defined meaning to the semiclassical transport approach at short distances if derived from the pure Dirac picture.
• We present a detailed derivation of the collision terms in the chiral kinetic theory using the OSEFT.
• Collision integrals are derived up to order 1/E, where E is the energy of an on-shell fermion.