Shear-induced spin polarization in heavy-ion collisions

Understand

We study the spin polarization generated by the hydrodynamic gradients.

• In addition to the widely studied thermal vorticity effects, we identify an undiscovered contribution from the fluid shear.
• This shear-induced polarization (SIP) can be viewed as the fluid analog of strain-induced polarization observed in elastic and nematic materials.
• We obtain the explicit expression for SIP using the quantum kinetic equation and linear response theory.