Hydrodynamics of spin currents

Abstract

We study relativistic hydrodynamics in the presence of a non vanishing spin potential. Using a variety of techniques we carry out an exhaustive analysis, and identify the constitutive relations for the stress tensor and spin current in such a setup, allowing us to write the hydrodynamic equations of motion to second order in derivatives. We then solve the equations of motion in a certain dynamical spin limit and in a perturbative setup and find surprisingly good agreement with measurements of global Λ-hyperon polarization carried out at RHIC.