Title: Relativistic Equations of Motion for a Spinning Particle in a Background Yang-Mills Field
Date: Feb 26, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Speaker: Prof. Yifeng Sun
Affiliation: Shanghai Jiao Tong U.
Abstract: In recent years, there has been growing interest in the momentum and spin transport of relativistic fermions propagating in background gauge fields in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, such as electromagnetic and chromo-electromagnetic fields. In this talk, based on the constrained Hamiltonian formalism, we derive relativistic equations of motion describing spin-one-half quarks propagating in a background non-Abelian Yang-Mills field. The resulting equations of motion are fully Lorentz covariant, allow for an arbitrary chromomagnetic moment, and consistently incorporate all necessary physical constraints. This framework provides a more complete and physically relevant description for investigating momentum diffusion and spin polarization phenomena of hard probes interacting with the glasma. Furthermore, we apply the formalism to the massless fermion limit, where the chiral kinetic equation is naturally recovered.