A diagramatic heat kernel expansion technique is presented. The method is
especially well suited to the small-derivative expansion of the heat kernel,
but it can also be used to reproduce the results obtained by the approach known
as covariant perturbation theory. The new technique gives an expansion for the
heat kernel at coincident points. It can also be used to obtain the derivative
of the heat kernel and this is useful for evaluating the expectation values of
the stress-energy tensor.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, ReVTe
