Thermal one- and two-graviton Green's functions in the temporal gauge

The thermal one- and two-graviton Green's function are computed using a temporal gauge. In order to handle the extra poles which are present in the propagator, we employ an ambiguity-free technique in the imaginary-time formalism. For temperatures T high compared with the external momentum, we obtain the leading T^4 as well as the subleading T^2 and log(T) contributions to the graviton self-energy. The gauge fixing independence of the leading T^4 terms as well as the Ward identity relating the self-energy with the one-point function are explicitly verified. We also verify the 't Hooft identities for the subleading T^2 terms and show that the logarithmic part has the same structure as the residue of the ultraviolet pole of the zero temperature graviton self-energy. We explicitly compute the extra terms generated by the prescription poles and verify that they do not change the behavior of the leading and sub-leading contributions from the hard thermal loop region. We discuss the modification of the solutions of the dispersion relations in the graviton plasma induced by the subleading T^2 contributions.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Revised version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Classical transport equation in non-commutative QED at high temperature

We show that the high temperature behavior of non-commutative QED may be simply obtained from Boltzmann transport equations for classical particles. The transport equation for the charge neutral particle is shown to be characteristically different from that for the charged particle. These equations correctly generate, for arbitrary values of the non-commutative parameter theta, the leading, gauge independent hard thermal loops, arising from the fermion and the gauge sectors. We briefly discuss the generating functional of hard thermal amplitudes.Comment: 11 page

Vanishing magnetic mass in QED3_{3} with a Chern-Simons term

We show that, at one loop, the magnetic mass vanishes at finite temperature in QED in any dimension. In QED$_{3}$, even the zero temperature part can be regularized to zero. We calculate the two loop contributions to the magnetic mass in QED$_{3}$ with a Chern-Simons term and show that it vanishes. We give a simple proof which shows that the magnetic mass vanishes to all orders at finite temperature in this theory. This proof also holds for QED in any dimension.Comment: revtex, 7 pages, 5 figure

On the Free Energy of Noncommutative Quantum Electrodynamics at High Temperature

We compute higher order contributions to the free energy of noncommutative quantum electrodynamics at a nonzero temperature $T$. Our calculation includes up to three-loop contributions (fourth order in the coupling constant $e$). In the high temperature limit we sum all the {\it ring diagrams} and obtain a result which has a peculiar dependence on the coupling constant. For large values of $e\theta T^2$ ($\theta$ is the magnitude of the noncommutative parameters) this non-perturbative contribution exhibits a non-analytic behavior proportional to $e^3$. We show that above a certain critical temperature, there occurs a thermodynamic instability which may indicate a phase transition.Comment: 28 pages, 37 figures. Matches published version in Nuclear Physics

High-temperature QCD and the classical Boltzmann equation in curved spacetime

It has been shown that the high-temperature limit of perturbative thermal QCD is easily obtained from the Boltzmann transport equation for `classical' coloured particles. We generalize this treatment to curved space-time. We are thus able to construct the effective stress-energy tensor. We give a construction for an effective action. As an example of the convenience of the Boltzmann method, we derive the high-temperature 3-graviton function. We discuss the static case.Comment: uuencoded gz-compressed .dvi fil

Scattering amplitudes at finite temperature

We present a simple set of rules for obtaining the imaginary part of a self energy diagram at finite temperature in terms of diagrams that correspond to physical scattering amplitudes.Comment: 23 pages in Revtex, with 33 eps-figure

Fermionic Contributions to the Free Energy of Noncommutative Quantum Electrodynamics at High Temperature

We consider the fermionic contributions to the free energy of noncommutative QED at finite temperature $T$. This analysis extends the main results of our previous investigation where we have considered the pure bosonic sector of the theory. For large values of $\theta T^2$ ($\theta$ is the magnitude of the noncommutative parameters) the fermionic contributions decrease the value of the critical temperature, above which there occurs a thermodynamic instability.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. To be published in Physics Letters

The energy of the high-temperature quark-gluon plasma

For the quark-gluon plasma, an energy-momentum tensor is found corresponding to the high-temperature Braaten-Pisarski effective action. The tensor is found by considering the interaction of the plasma with a weak gravitational field and the positivity of the energy is studied. In addition, the complete effective action in curved spacetime is written down.Comment: 13 pages, one figure, plain TeX forma

Transport equation for the photon Wigner operator in non-commutative QED

We derive an exact quantum equation of motion for the photon Wigner operator in non-commutative QED, which is gauge covariant. In the classical approximation, this reduces to a simple transport equation which describes the hard thermal effects in this theory. As an example of the effectiveness of this method we show that, to leading order, this equation generates in a direct way the Green amplitudes calculated perturbatively in quantum field theory at high temperature.Comment: 13 pages, twocolumn revtex4 styl

Non-commutative Oscillators and the commutative limit

It is shown in first order perturbation theory that anharmonic oscillators in non-commutative space behave smoothly in the commutative limit just as harmonic oscillators do. The non-commutativity provides a method for converting a problem in degenerate perturbation theory to a non-degenerate problem.Comment: Latex, 6 pages, Minor changes and references adde