155 research outputs found
Mass Expansions of Screened Perturbation Theory
The thermodynamics of massless phi^4-theory is studied within screened
perturbation theory (SPT). In this method the perturbative expansion is
reorganized by adding and subtracting a mass term in the Lagrangian. We
analytically calculate the pressure and entropy to three-loop order and the
screening mass to two-loop order, expanding in powers of m/T. The truncated
m/T-expansion results are compared with numerical SPT results for the pressure,
entropy and screening mass which are accurate to all orders in m/T. It is shown
that the m/T-expansion converges quickly and provides an accurate description
of the thermodynamic functions for large values of the coupling constant.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figure
Solution to the 3-loop -derivable Approximation for Scalar Thermodynamics
We solve the 3-loop -derivable approximation to the thermodynamics of
the massless field theory by reducing it to a 1-parameter variational
problem. The thermodynamic potential is expanded in powers of and ,
where is the coupling constant, is a variational mass parameter, and
is the temperature. There are ultraviolet divergences beginning at 6th
order in that cannot be removed by renormalization. However the finite
thermodynamic potential obtained by truncating after terms of 5th order in
and defines a stable approximation to the thermodynamic functions.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
The Equation of State for Dense QCD and Quark Stars
We calculate the equation of state for degenerate quark matter to leading
order in hard-dense-loop (HDL) perturbation theory. We solve the
Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations to obtain the mass-radius relation for
dense quark stars. Both the perturbative QCD and the HDL equations of state
have a large variation with respect to the renormalization scale for quark
chemical potential below 1 GeV which leads to large theoretical uncertainties
in the quark star mass-radius relation.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Dynamics of Quark-Gluon-Plasma Instabilities in Discretized Hard-Loop Approximation
Non-Abelian plasma instabilities have been proposed as a possible explanation
for fast isotropization of the quark-gluon plasma produced in relativistic
heavy-ion collisions. We study the real-time evolution of these instabilities
in non-Abelian plasmas with a momentum-space anisotropy using a hard-loop
effective theory that is discretized in the velocities of hard particles. We
extend our previous results on the evolution of the most unstable modes, which
are constant in directions transverse to the direction of anisotropy, from
gauge group SU(2) to SU(3). We also present first full 3+1-dimensional
simulation results based on velocity-discretized hard loops. In contrast to the
effectively 1+1-dimensional transversely constant modes we find subexponential
behaviour at late times.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures. v3 typos fixe
Renormalization Group Summation and the Free Energy of Hot QCD
Using an approach developed in the context of zero-temperature QCD to
systematically sum higher order effects whose form is fixed by the
renormalization group equation, we sum to all orders the leading log (LL) and
next-to-leading log (NLL) contributions to the thermodynamic free energy in hot
QCD. While the result varies considerably less with changes in the
renormalization scale than does the purely perturbative result, a novel
ambiguity arises which reflects the strong scheme dependence of thermal
perturbation theory.Comment: 7 pages REVTEX4, 2 figures; v2: typos correcte
Two-loop HTL Thermodynamics with Quarks
We calculate the quark contribution to the free energy of a hot quark-gluon
plasma to two-loop order using hard-thermal-loop (HTL) perturbation theory. All
ultraviolet divergences can be absorbed into renormalizations of the vacuum
energy and the HTL quark and gluon mass parameters. The quark and gluon HTL
mass parameters are determined self-consistently by a variational prescription.
Combining the quark contribution with the two-loop HTL perturbation theory free
energy for pure-glue we obtain the total two-loop QCD free energy. Comparisons
are made with lattice estimates of the free energy for N_f=2 and with exact
numerical results obtained in the large-N_f limit.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figure
Small, Dense Quark Stars from Perturbative QCD
As a model for nonideal behavior in the equation of state of QCD at high
density, we consider cold quark matter in perturbation theory. To second order
in the strong coupling constant, , the results depend sensitively on
the choice of the renormalization mass scale. Certain choices of this scale
correspond to a strongly first order chiral transition, and generate quark
stars with maximum masses and radii approximately half that of ordinary neutron
stars. At the center of these stars, quarks are essentially massless.Comment: ReVTeX, 5 pages, 3 figure
Thermodynamics of Large-N_f QCD at Finite Chemical Potential
We extend the previously obtained results for the thermodynamic potential of
hot QCD in the limit of large number of fermions to non-vanishing chemical
potential. We give exact results for the thermal pressure in the entire range
of temperature and chemical potential for which the presence of a Landau pole
is negligible numerically. In addition we compute linear and non-linear quark
susceptibilities at zero chemical potential, and the entropy at small
temperatures. We compare with the available perturbative results and determine
their range of applicability. Our numerical accuracy is sufficiently high to
check and verify existing results, including the recent perturbative results by
Vuorinen on quark number susceptibilities and the older results by Freedman and
McLerran on the pressure at zero temperature and high chemical potential. We
also obtain a number of perturbative coefficients at sixth order in the
coupling that have not yet been calculated analytically. In the case of both
non-zero temperature and non-zero chemical potential, we investigate the range
of validity of a scaling behaviour noticed recently in lattice calculations by
Fodor, Katz, and Szabo at moderately large chemical potential and find that it
breaks down rather abruptly at , which points to a
presumably generic obstruction for extrapolating data from small to large
chemical potential. At sufficiently small temperatures , we find
dominating non-Fermi-liquid contributions to the interaction part of the
entropy, which exhibits strong nonlinearity in the temperature and an excess
over the free-theory value.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, JHEP style; v2: several updates, rewritten and
extended sect. 3.4 covering now "Entropy at small temperatures and
non-Fermi-liquid behaviour"; v3: additional remarks at the end of sect. 3.4;
v4: minor corrections and additions (version to appear in JHEP
The Massive Thermal Basketball Diagram
The "basketball diagram" is a three-loop vacuum diagram for a scalar field
theory that cannot be expressed in terms of one-loop diagrams. We calculate
this diagram for a massive scalar field at nonzero temperature, reducing it to
expressions involving three-dimensional integrals that can be easily evaluated
numerically. We use this result to calculate the free energy for a massive
scalar field with a phi^4 interaction to three-loop order.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure
Approximately self-consistent resummations for the thermodynamics of the quark-gluon plasma. I. Entropy and density
We propose a gauge-invariant and manifestly UV finite resummation of the
physics of hard thermal/dense loops (HTL/HDL) in the thermodynamics of the
quark-gluon plasma. The starting point is a simple, effectively one-loop
expression for the entropy or the quark density which is derived from the fully
self-consistent two-loop skeleton approximation to the free energy, but subject
to further approximations, whose quality is tested in a scalar toy model. In
contrast to the direct HTL/HDL-resummation of the one-loop free energy, in our
approach both the leading-order (LO) and the next-to-leading order (NLO)
effects of interactions are correctly reproduced and arise from kinematical
regimes where the HTL/HDL are justifiable approximations. The LO effects are
entirely due to the (asymptotic) thermal masses of the hard particles. The NLO
ones receive contributions both from soft excitations, as described by the
HTL/HDL propagators, and from corrections to the dispersion relation of the
hard excitations, as given by HTL/HDL perturbation theory. The numerical
evaluations of our final expressions show very good agreement with lattice data
for zero-density QCD, for temperatures above twice the transition temperature.Comment: 62 pages REVTEX, 14 figures; v2: numerous clarifications, sect. 2C
shortened, new material in sect. 3C; v3: more clarifications, one appendix
removed, alternative implementation of the NLO effects, corrected eq. (5.16
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