A Simple Derivation of the Hard Thermal Loop Effective Action

We use the background field method along with a special gauge condition, to derive the hard thermal loop effective action in a simple manner. The new point in the paper is to relate the effective action explicitly to the S-matrix from the onset.Comment: 11 pages, Latex; lost text after sect. 2 reinserte

Hard Thermal Loops, Gauged WZNW Action and the Energy of Hot Quark-Gluon Plasma

The generating functional for hard thermal loops in QCD is rewritten in terms of a gauged WZNW action by introducing an auxiliary field. This shows in a simple way that the contribution of hard thermal loops to the energy of the quark-gluon plasma is positive.Comment: 9 pages, CU-TP 60

High Temperature Response Functions and the Non-Abelian Kubo Formula

We describe the relationship between time-ordered and retarded response functions in a plasma. We obtain an expression, including the proper $i\epsilon$-prescription, for the induced current due to hard thermal loops in a non-Abelian theory, thus giving the non-Abelian generalization of the Kubo formula. The result is closely related to the eikonal for a Chern-Simons theory and is relevant for a gauge-invariant description of Landau damping in the quark-gluon plasma at high temperature.Comment: 14 pages in LaTeX, MIT CTP #2205 and CU-TP #59

Hard Thermal Loops, Static Response and the Composite Effective Action

First, we investigate the static non-Abelian Kubo equation. We prove that it does not possess finite energy solutions; thereby we establish that gauge theories do not support hard thermal solitons. A similar argument shows that "static" instantons are absent. In addition, we note that the static equations reproduce the expected screening of the non-Abelian electric field by a gauge invariant Debye mass m=gT sqrt((N+N_F/2)/3). Second, we derive the non-Abelian Kubo equation from the composite effective action. This is achieved by showing that the requirement of stationarity of the composite effective action is equivalent, within a kinematical approximation scheme, to the condition of gauge invariance for the generating functional of hard thermal loops.Comment: 17 pages, MIT preprint CTP#2261. An Appendix [including one (appended) PS figure] presenting a numerical analysis of the static solutions has been included. A note relating our approach to alternative ones has been added. We have also added references and comments in Section II

Bosonic Description of Spinning Strings in 2+12+1 Dimensions

We write down a general action principle for spinning strings in 2+1 dimensional space-time without introducing Grassmann variables. The action is written solely in terms of coordinates taking values in the 2+1 Poincare group, and it has the usual string symmetries, i.e. it is invariant under a) diffeomorphisms of the world sheet and b) Poincare transformations. The system can be generalized to an arbitrary number of space-time dimensions, and also to spinning membranes and p-branes.Comment: Latex, 12 page

Hard-Loop Effective Action for Anisotropic Plasmas

We generalize the hard-thermal-loop effective action of the equilibrium quark-gluon plasma to a non-equilibrium system which is space-time homogeneous but for which the parton momentum distribution is anisotropic. We show that the manifestly gauge-invariant Braaten-Pisarski form of the effective action can be straightforwardly generalized and we verify that it then generates all n-point functions following from collisionless gauge-covariant transport theory for a homogeneous anisotropic plasma. On the other hand, the Taylor-Wong form of the hard-thermal-loop effective action has a more complicated generalization to the anisotropic case. Already in the simplest case of anisotropic distribution functions, it involves an additional term that is gauge invariant by itself, but nontrivial also in the static limit.Comment: 12 pages. Version 3: typo in (15) corrected, note added discussing metric conventions use

Transport Theory of Massless Fields

Using the Schwinger-Keldysh technique we discuss how to derive the transport equations for the system of massless quantum fields. We analyse the scalar field models with quartic and cubic interaction terms. In the $\phi^4$ model the massive quasiparticles appear due to the self-interaction of massless bare fields. Therefore, the derivation of the transport equations strongly resembles that one of the massive fields, but the subset of diagrams which provide the quasiparticle mass has to be resummed. The kinetic equation for the finite width quasiparticles is found, where, except the mean-field and collision terms, there are terms which are absent in the standard Boltzmann equation. The structure of these terms is discussed. In the massless $\phi^3$ model the massive quasiparticles do not emerge and presumably there is no transport theory corresponding to this model. It is not surprising since the $\phi^3$ model is anyhow ill defined.Comment: 32 pages, no macro

Damping rates for moving particles in hot QCD

Using a program of perturbative resummation I compute the damping rates for fields at nonzero spatial momentum to leading order in weak coupling in hot $QCD$. Sum rules for spectral densities are used to simplify the calculations. For massless fields the damping rate has an apparent logarithmic divergence in the infrared limit, which is cut off by the screening of static magnetic fields (``magnetic mass''). This demonstrates how at high temperature even perturbative quantities are sensitive to nonperturbative phenomenon.Comment: LaTeX file, 24 pages, BNL-P-1/92 (December, 1992

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking for Scalar QED with Non-minimal Chern-Simons Coupling

We investigate the two-loop effective potential for both minimally and non-minimally coupled Maxwell-Chern-Simons theories. The non-minimal gauge interaction represents the magnetic moment interaction between a charged scalar and the electromagnetic field. In a previous paper we have shown that the two loop effective potential for this model is renormalizable with an appropriate choice of the non-minimal coupling constant. We carry out a detailed analysis of the spontaneous symmetry breaking induced by radiative corrections. As long as the renormalization point for all couplings is chosen to be the true minimum of the effective potential, both models predict the presence of spontaneous symmetry breaking. Two loop corrections are small compared to the one loop result, and thus the symmetry breaking is perturbatively stable.Comment: Revtex 25 pages, 9 figure

Thermal matter and radiation in a gravitational field

We study the one-loop contributions of matter and radiation to the gravitational polarization tensor at finite temperatures. Using the analytically continued imaginary-time formalism, the contribution of matter is explicitly given to next-to-leading ($T^2$) order. We obtain an exact form for the contribution of radiation fields, expressed in terms of generalized Riemann zeta functions. A general expression is derived for the physical polarization tensor, which is independent of the parametrization of graviton fields. We investigate the effective thermal masses associated with the normal modes of the corresponding graviton self-energy.Comment: 32 pages, IFUSP/P-107