Analytic structure of diffusive correlation functions

Diffusion is a dissipative transport phenomenon ubiquitously present in nature. Its details can now be analyzed with modern effective field theory (EFT) techniques that use the closed-time-path (or Schwinger-Keldysh) formalism. We discuss the structure of the diffusive effective action appropriate for the analysis of stochastic or thermal loop effects, responsible for the so-called long-time tails, to all orders. We also elucidate and prove a number of properties of the EFT and use the theory to establish the analytic structure of the <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mi>n</a:mi></a:math>-loop contributions to diffusive retarded two-point functions. Our analysis confirms a previously proposed result by Delacrétaz that used microscopic conformal field theory arguments. Then, we analyze a number of implications of these loop corrections to the dispersion relations of the diffusive mode and new, gapped modes that appear when the EFT is treated as exact. Finally, we discuss certain features of an all-loop model of diffusion that only retains a special subset of <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><c:mi>n</c:mi></c:math>-loop “banana” diagrams. Published by the American Physical Society 2024