The polarization tensor of neutral gluons in external fields at high temperature

The one-loop polarization operator of neutral gluons in the background constant Abelian isotopic, $H_{3}$, and hypercharge, $H_{8}$, chromomagnetic fields combined with $A_0$ electrostatic potential at high temperature is calculated. The case when $A_0=0$ is investigated separately. The proper time method is applied. It is found that neutral gluons do not acquire magnetic masses in the background fields, in contrast to the charged ones. The application of the results are discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Fermi spectra and their gauge invariance in hot and dense Abelian and non-Abelian theories

The one-loop Fermi spectra (one-particle and collective ones) are found for all momenta in the $T^2$-approximation and their gauge invariance in hot and dense Abelian and non-Abelian theories is studied. It is shown that the one-particle spectrum, if the calculation accuracy is kept strictly, is gauge invariant for all momenta and has two branches as the bare one. The collective spectrum always has four branches which are gauge dependent including also their |\q|=0 limit. The exception is the case $m,\mu=0$ for which this spectrum is gauge invariant for all momenta as well.Comment: 16 pages, latex, no figure

The pressure of deconfined QCD for all temperatures and quark chemical potentials

We present a new method for the evaluation of the perturbative expansion of the QCD pressure which is valid at all values of the temperature and quark chemical potentials in the deconfined phase and which we work out up to and including order g^4 accuracy. Our calculation is manifestly four-dimensional and purely diagrammatic -- and thus independent of any effective theory descriptions of high temperature or high density QCD. In various limits, we recover the known results of dimensional reduction and the HDL and HTL resummation schemes, as well as the equation of state of zero-temperature quark matter, thereby verifying their respective validity. To demonstrate the overlap of the various regimes, we furthermore show how the predictions of dimensional reduction and HDL resummed perturbation theory agree in the regime T~\sqrt{g}*mu. At parametrically smaller temperatures T~g*mu, we find that the dimensional reduction result agrees well with those of the nonstatic resummations down to the remarkably low value T~0.2 m_D, where m_D is the Debye mass at T=0. Beyond this, we see that only the latter methods connect smoothly to the T=0 result of Freedman and McLerran, to which the leading small-T corrections are given by the so-called non-Fermi-liquid terms, first obtained through HDL resummations. Finally, we outline the extension of our method to the next order, where it would include terms for the low-temperature entropy and specific heats that are unknown at present.Comment: 45 pages, 21 figures; v2: minor corrections and clarifications, references added; v3: Fig 16 added, version accepted for publication in PR