Dynamical chemistry: non-equilibrium effective actions for reactive fluids

Understand

We present two approaches for describing chemical reactions taking place in fluid phase.

• The first method mirrors the usual derivation of the hydrodynamic equations of motion by relating conserved---or to account for chemical reactions, non-conserved---currents to local-equilibrium parameters.
• The second method involves a higher-brow approach in which we attack the same problem from the perspective of non-equilibrium effective field theory (EFT).
• Non-equilibrium effective actions are defined using the in-in formalism on the Schwinger-Keldysh contour and are therefore capable of describing thermal fluctuations and dissipation as well as quantum effects.