Quantum Kinetic Description of Spin and Rotation

Motivated by the generation of extremely strong axial vector fields, i.e., magnetic and vortical fields, and development of hadron polarization measurement in relativistic heavy ion collisions, the quantum kinetic theory becomes more and more important in the phenomenological study on the quark–gluon plasma evolution. In this chapter the quantum correction is introduced intuitively with canonical quantization and path integral approaches. The quantum kinetic theory formulated with Wigner function is discussed in detail to develop the quantum transport equations for chiral and massive fermions. As a straightforward application the polarization and anomaly effect are studied in the presence of background magnetic field and vorticity distribution. Finally the experimental results and numerical simulation frameworks are briefly reviewed.