Anomalous hydrodynamics kicks neutron stars

Abstract
Description
Observations show that, at the beginning of their existence, neutron stars are accelerated briskly to velocities of up to a thousand kilometers per second. We argue that this remarkable effect can be explained as a manifestation of quantum anomalies on astrophysical scales. To theoretically describe the early stage in the life of neutron stars we use hydrodynamics as a systematic effective-field-theory framework. Within this framework, anomalies of the Standard Model of particle physics as underlying microscopic theory imply the presence of a particular set of transport terms, whose form is completely fixed by theoretical consistency. The resulting chiral transport effects in proto-neutron stars enhance neutrino emission along the internal magnetic field, and the recoil can explain the order of magnitude of the observed kick velocities.
Keywords
Citation
Kaminski, M., Uhlemann, C.F., Bleicher, M., & Schaffner-Bieliche, J. (2016). Anomalous hydrodynamics kicks neutron stars. Physics Letters B, 760, 170-174.