Thermal field theory is indispensable for describing hot and dense systems. Yet perturbative calculations are often stymied by a host of energy scales, and tend to converge slowly. This means that precise results require the apt use of effective field theories. In this paper we refine the effective description of slowly varying gauge field known as hard thermal loops. We match this effective theory to the full theory to two-loops. Our results apply for any renormalizable model and fermion chemical potential. We also discuss how to consistently define asymptotic masses at higher orders; and how to treat spectral functions close to the lightcone. In particular, we demonstrate that the gluon mass is well-defined to next-to-leading order.
We derive an expression for the heavy quark damping rate in hot quark gluon plasma in presence of flow. Here all the bath particles here are out of equilibrium due to the existence of non-zero velocity gradient. The magnetic sector shows similar infrared divergences even after hard thermal loop corrections as one encounters in case of non-viscous plasma. We estimate the first order correction in ($η/s$) for heavy quark damping rate due to the non-zero viscosity of the QCD plasma.
We extend a previous work on the study of heavy charmonia and bottomonia in a deconfined quark-gluon plasma by considering the Bc family of mesons. With the introduction of this bound state of a charm and a beauty quark, we investigate at finite temperature the behavior of the quarkonium, in an energy region between the ψ and the Υ states.
We calculate the bound state properties of $J/ψ$ in a hot and dense QCD plasma using phenomenological potentials augmented by inputs from perturbative QCD. The temperature and density region of study will be relevant in future heavy ion collision experiments at FAIR. We find that the effect of baryon density on the dissociation of $J/ψ$ is small in this regime. However we indicate that if there is a critical end point in the QCD phase diagram then strong density fluctuation will dissociate charmonia near hadronization. The measurement of $J/ψ$ suppression can therefore signify the existence of…
We calculate the free energy of a hot gluon plasma to leading order in hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory. Effects associated with screening, gluon quasiparticles, and Landau damping are resummed to all orders. The ultraviolet divergences generated by the hard-thermal-loop propagator corrections can be cancelled by a temperature-independent counterterm. The deviation of the hard-thermal-loop free energy from lattice QCD results for T > 2 T_c has the correct sign and roughly the correct magnitude to be accounted for by next-to-leading order corrections.
The quantum kinetics of photons is studied directly in real time by implementing the dynamical renormalization group. In contrast to conventional approach, the dynamical renormalization group method consistently includes off-shell (energy non-conserving) effects and accounts for time-dependent collisional kernel. To lowest order we find that in the relaxation time approximation the semihard photon distribution function relaxes with a power law.
We present the derivation of heavy quark energy loss in a viscous QCD plasma using kinetic theory. Shear flow changes both boson and fermion distribution functions which eventually modify heavy quark energy loss. Due to presence of non-zero flow gradient in the medium all the bath particles here are out of equilibrium. In these types of plasmas we show that without plasma screening effects heavy quark energy loss suffers similar type of infrared divergence as one encounters in non-viscous plasma. The screening effects are incorporated consistently through Hard Thermal Loop resummation perturba…
We compare two mechanisms for the dissociation of heavy mesons in an infinite quark-gluon plasma: dynamic Debye screening and multiple scattering. Using the uncertainty principle inspired by a Schrodinger-like equation, we find that the criterion a_B\simeq1/μ\simeq 1/(α_{eff}^{1/2}T) with α_{eff}\equivα(N_c+{N_f\over2}) is parametrically true both for the dissociation of fast moving heavy mesons with a size a_B due to dynamic Debye screening as well as for mesons at rest in the medium. In contrast, we find that the criterion for the dissociation of heavy mesons due to uncorrelated multiple sca…
A calculation of the thermal quark propagator is presented taking the gluon condensate above the critical temperature into account. The quark dispersion relation following from this propagator is derived.
We present a calculation of the thermal quark propagator taking the gluon condensate above the critical temperature into account. The quark dispersion relation following from this propagator, describing two massive modes, is discussed.
We compute the energy loss of heavy quarkonia in high temperature QCD plasmas and investigate the energy loss effects on quarkonium suppression. Based on the effective vertex derived from the Bethe-Salpeter amplitude for quarkonium, the collisional and radiative energy loss are determined by quarkonium-gluon elastic scattering and the associated gluon-bremsstrahlung, respectively. In the energy regime $E<m_Υ^2/T$ the collisional energy loss is dominant over the radiative one, and the total energy loss increases with the plasma temperature and the initial energy of quarkonium. Our numerical ana…
We investigate possible mass shift and width broadening of J/psi in hot gluonic matter using QCD sum rule. Input values of gluon condensates at finite temperature are extracted from lattice QCD data for the energy density and pressure. Although stability of the moment ratio is achieved only up to T/Tc ~ 1.05, the gluon condensates cause a decrease of the moment ratio, which results in change of spectral properties. Using the Breit-Wigner form for the phenomenological side, we find that mass shift of J/psi just above Tc can reach maximally 200 MeV and width can broaden to dozens of MeV.
Thermal (Th-)QCD properties appear to disagree with lattice (L-)QCD results, which suggests that Th-QCD does not have a valid perturbative expansion. However, we reproduce L-QCD using the first order $α_s$ corrections in Th-QCD.
[Talk given at "Continuous Advances in QCD '98."] I give a simple physical picture of why the rate $Γ$ per unit volume of non-perturbative processes in hot non-Abelian plasmas (such as electroweak baryon number violation in the very early universe) depends on coupling as $Γ\sim α^5 T^4 \ln(1/α)$. The logarithmic dependence was recently discovered by Bodeker.
In this talk I briefly discuss the thermodynamics of the quark-gluon plasma The calculation of the free energy of a hot gluon plasma to leading order in hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory is outlined. The HTL free energy is compared with the weak-coupling expansion and lattice results.
We consider a transport equation of the Boltzmann-Langevin type for non-Abelian plasmas close to equilibrium to derive the spectral functions of the underlying microscopic fluctuations from the entropy. The correlator of the stochastic source is obtained from the dissipative processes in the plasma. This approach, based on classical transport theory, exploits the well-known link between a linearized collision integral, the entropy and the spectral functions. Applied to the ultra-soft modes of a hot non-Abelian (classical or quantum) plasma, the resulting spectral functions agree with earlier f…
The thermal propagator of a heavy muon propagating in a hot QED plasma is examined within the Bloch-Nordsieck approximation, which is valid in the infrared region. It is shown that the muon damping rate is finite, in contrast to the lower-order calculation with hard thermal loop resummations taken into account.
The quark contribution to the free energy of a hot quark-gluon plasma is calculated to leading order in hard-thermal-loop (HTL) perturbation theory. This method selectively resums higher order corrections associated with plasma effects, such as screening, quasiparticles, and Landau damping. Comparing to the weak-coupling expansion of QCD, the error in the one-loop HTL free energy is of order alpha_s, but the large alpha_s^(3/2) correction from QCD plasma effects is included exactly.
In this work on the basis of Kadomtsev's kinetic fluctuation theory we present the more general expression for noise-noise correlation function in effective theory for ultrasoft field modes.
We present results for the evolution of the momentum distribution of a hard parton traversing a brick of quark-gluon plasma, considering both bremsstrahlung and collisional energy loss. The complete leading order transition rates are included. We find a significant modification of the evolving momentum distribution compared to results obtained by employing an approximate implementation of the collisional energy loss that uses the mean energy loss, together with momentum diffusion.
We present a mini-review of the problem of evaluating the energy loss of a ultrarelativistic charged particle crossing a thermally equilibrated high temperature e+e- or quark-gluon plasma.
Strong collinear divergences, although regularized by a thermal mass, result in a breakdown of the standard hard thermal loop expansion in the calculation of the production rate of photons by a plasma of quarks and gluons using thermal field theory techniques.
Considering the propagation of off-shell particles in the framework of thermal field theory, we present the general formalism for the calculation of the production rate of soft photons and dileptons from a hot plasma. This approach is illustrated with an electrodynamic plasma. The photon production rate from strongly interacting quarks in the quark-gluon plasma, which might be formed in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, is calculated in the previously unaccessible regime of photon energies of the order of the plasma temperature within an effective field theory incorporating dynamical chi…
Within the framework of the effective theory for ultrasoft field modes a problem of interacting an energetic color particle with ultrasoft fluctuations in hot gluon plasma is considered. The procedure of calculation of certain effective current generating the process of interaction is proposed, and the problem of its gauge independence is discussed. The application of the theory developed to the problem of energy losses of the energetic color particle propagating through hot QCD-medium is given. It is shown that the perturbation approach for calculation of energy losses breaks down at the ultr…
The gluon polarization tensor for the quark-gluon plasma with shear viscosity is derived with the viscous chromohydrodynamics. The longitudinal and transverse dielectric functions are evaluated from the gluon polarization tensor, through which the polarization energy loss suffered by a fast quark traveling through the viscous quark-gluon plasma is investigated. The numerical analysis indicates that shear viscosity significantly reduces the polarization energy loss.
This thesis is devoted to the study of the screening masses in hot non-Abelian theories. Section 1 contain a brief introduction to the topic. In section 2 a detailed overview of the screening phenomena and their applications is given. In section 3 the screening masses are defined through the coupled gap equations. Section 4 deals with the determination of the screening masses of hot SU(2) gauge theory in the framework of the 3d lattice adjoint Higgs model considered as an effective theory. Finally in section 5 the screening masses of hot SU(2) Higgs model are examined.
We study the propagation of energy density perturbation in a hot, ideal quark-gluon medium in which quarks and gluons follow the Tsallis-like momentum distributions. We have observed that a non-extensive MIT bag equation of state obtained with the help of the quantum Tsallis-like distributions gives rise to a breaking wave solution of the equation dictating the evolution of energy density perturbation. However, the breaking of waves is delayed when the value of the Tsallis q parameter and the Tsallis temperature T are higher.
The Fermi excitations in hot and dense quark-gluon plasma are studied in the Feynman gauge using the temperature Green function technique. We find the four well-separated branches for the case $m=0$ and establish the additional splitting between them (the four different masses) when $m\ne 0$. The long wavelength limit of these excitations is found in the general case of the massive fermions at finite temperature and densities to give the exact one-loop spectrum. Simultaneously the many known results are reproduces as its different limits.
The possibility of describing the behavior of a $Q\overline{Q}$ pair in a hot plasma in terms of an effective potential is investigated. It is shown that as long as medium effects can be embodied in a gaussian action, like in the QED case, the $Q\overline{Q}$ propagator obeys a closed temporal evolution equation whose large-time behavior is governed by an effective potential. The latter, beside screening, displays also an imaginary part related to collisions.
The quark-gluon plasma in stellar structure is investigated using the fluid-like QCD approach. The classical energy momentum tensor relevant for high energy and hot plasma having the nature of fluid bulk of gluon sea is calculated within the model. The transition of gluon field from point particle field inside stable hadrons to relativistic fluid field in hot plasma and vice versa is briefly discussed. The results are applied to construct the equation of state using the Tolman--Oppenheimer--Volkoff equation to describe the hot plasma dominated stellar structure.
We discuss the glueball contribution to the equation of state (EoS) of hot gluon matter below and above $T_c$. It is shown that the strong changing of masses of scalar and pseudoscalar glueballs near $T_c$ plays very important role in the thermodynamics of $SU(3)$ gauge theory. In particular, we give the arguments that these glueballs become massless at $T_G\approx 1.1T_c$ and this phenomenon is crucial in understanding of the mystery in the behavior of trace anomaly founded in the lattice calculation.
We present new results on the equation of state and transition line of hot and dense strongly interacting QCD matter, obtained from a bottom-up Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton holographic model. We considerably expand the previous coverage in baryon densities in this model by implementing new numerical methods to map the holographic black hole solutions onto the QCD phase diagram. We are also able to obtain, for the first time, the first-order phase transition line in a wide region of the phase diagram. Comparisons with the most recent lattice results for the QCD thermodynamics are also presented.
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.
We study how local fluctuations in the initial states of relativistic heavy-ion collisions manifest themselves in the correlations between different orders of harmonic moments of the density profiles, particularly those involving only odd harmonics which purely arise from initial state fluctuations. We find the strengths of those correlations are sensitive to the number of hot and cold spots in the initial states. Hydrodynamic evolution of the fireball translates initial state geometric anisotropies as well as their correlations into final state momentum anisotropies and correlations. We concl…
The calculation of the lifetime of quasiparticles in a QED plasma at high temperature remains plagued with infrared divergences, even after one has taken into account the screening corrections. The physical processes responsible for these divergences are the collisions involving the exchange of very soft, unscreened, magnetic photons, whose contribution is enhanced by the thermal Bose-Einstein occupation factor. The self energy diagrams which diverge in perturbation theory contain no internal fermion loops, but an arbitrary number of internal magnetostatic photon lines. By generalizing the Blo…
Noncentral collision of heavy ions can generate large magnetic field in its neighbourhood. We describe a method to calculate the effect of this field on the dilepton emission rate from the colliding region, when it reaches thermal equilibrium. It is calculated in the real time method of thermal field theory. We find that the rate is affected significantly only for lower momenta of dileptons.
We provide a discussion of the bulk viscosity of two-flavor quark plasma, described by the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, within the framework of Kubo-Zubarev formalism. This discussion, which is complementary to our earlier study, contains a new, detailed derivation of the bulk viscosity in the case of multiple conserved charges. We also provide some numerical details of the computation of the bulk viscosity close to the Mott transition line, where the dissipation is dominated by decays of mesons into quarks and their inverse processes. We close with a summary of our current understanding of this…
It is shown that the long wavelength excitations of a quark-gluon plasma may be described as collective oscillations of self-consistent average fields to which the plasma particles couple. Their properties are obtained from a set of coupled mean field and kinetic equations, derived from the general Dyson-Schwinger equations, as the leading order in a systematic expansion in powers of the coupling. By solving the kinetic equations, one obtains in closed form the generating functionals for all the leading order amplitudes between soft quasiparticles, the so-called ``hard thermal loops''.
We derive a set of equations describing the real time dynamics of modes with spatial momentum of order g^2 T in a high temperature gauge theory, where g is the coupling constant and T is the temperature. This dynamics is stochastic in nature. Important implications for baryon number violation at high temperature and for the physics at the electroweak phase transition, are discussed.
We calculate the energy and hydrostatic pressure densities of a hot quark-gluon plasma in thermal equilibrium through diagrammatic analyses of the statistical average, $\langle Θ_{μν} \rangle$, of the energy-momentum-tensor operator $Θ_{μν}$. To leading order at high temperature, the energy density of the long wave length modes is consistently extracted by applying the hard-thermal-loop resummation scheme to the operator-inserted no-leg thermal amplitudes $\langle Θ_{μν} \rangle$. We find that, for the long wave length gluons, the energy density, being positive, is tremendously enhanced as com…
We discuss two ways of deriving the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) for soft fermion excitations in a hot non-Abelian plasma being in a thermal equilibrium. The first of them is based on the extended (pseudo)classical model in describing a quark-gluon plasma suggested in [Yu.A. Markov, M.A. Markova, Nucl. Phys. A {\bf 784} (2007) 443], while the second one rests on the standard technique of calculation of the FDT for thermodynamically equilibrium systems. We show that full accounting all subtleties that are common to the fermion system under consideration, results in perfect coincidence …
We calculate the thermodynamic functions of a hot gluon plasma to leading order in hard-thermal-loop (HTL) perturbation theory. Effects associated with screening, gluon quasiparticles, and Landau damping are resummed to all orders. The ultraviolet divergences generated by the HTL propagator corrections can be cancelled by a counterterm that depends on the thermal gluon mass parameter. The HTL thermodynamic functions are compared to those from lattice gauge theory calculations and from quasiparticle models. For reasonable values of the HTL parameters, the deviations from lattice results for T >…
The properties of Majorana fermions in hot plasma are studied. One-loop resummed propagator, dispersion relations and their interpretation are discussed. It is shown that particle and hole -like solutions appear as in Dirac/chiral fermion case. The dispersion relations are, however, crucially different. We find that, in presence of a large zero temperature bare mass, hole -like excitations posses a negligible effective mass. As an example of real application, we consider the neutralinos in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model and argue that for realistic values of the sof…
The perturbative calculation of the lifetime of fermion excitations in a QED plasma at high temperature is plagued with infrared divergences which are not eliminated by the screening corrections. The physical processes responsible for these divergences are the collisions involving the exchange of longwavelength, quasistatic, magnetic photons, which are not screened by plasma effects. The leading divergences can be resummed in a non-perturbative treatement based on a generalization of the Bloch-Nordsieck model at finite temperature. The resulting expression of the fermion propagator is free of …
The effect of short wavelength quantum electrodynamic (QED) correction on plasma-wave propagation is investigated. The effect on plasma oscillations and on electromagnetic waves in an unmagnetized as well as a magnetized plasma is investigated. The effects of the short wavelength QED corrections are most significant for plasma oscillations and for extraordinary modes. In particular, the QED correction allow plasma oscillations to propagate, and the extra-ordinary mode looses its stop band. The significance of our results is discussed.
For Dirac neutrinos with magnetic moment, we compute the production rate for right-handed neutrinos in a hot and dense QED plasma containing an initial population of left-handed neutrinos thermally distributed. The most important mechanisms for $ν_L$ depolarization, or production of right-handed neutrinos, are the $ν_L \to ν_R$ chirality flip and the plasmon decay to $\barν_L + ν_R$. The rates for these processes are computed in terms of a resummed photon propagator which consistently incorporates the background effects to leading order. Applying the results to the cases of supernovae core col…
A proper sequence of effective theories, corresponding to larger and larger distance scales, is crucial for analyzing real-time equilibrium physics in hot non-Abelian plasmas. For the study of color dynamics (by which I mean physics involving long wavelength gauge fluctuations), an important stepping stone in the sequence of effective theories is to have a good effective theory for dynamics with wave number k well below the Debye screening mass. I review how such dynamics is associated with inverse time scales omega << k. I then give a compact way to package, in the omega << k limit, Bodeker's…
We discuss the sequence of effective theories needed to understand the qualitative, and quantitative, behavior of real-time correlators < A(t) A(0) > in ultra-relativistic plasmas. We analyze in detail the case where A is a gauge-invariant conserved current. This case is of interest because it includes a correlation recently measured in lattice simulations of classical, hot, SU(2)-Higgs gauge theory. We find that simple perturbation theory, free kinetic theory, linearized kinetic theory, and hydrodynamics are all needed to understand the correlation for different ranges of time. We emphasize h…
Within the framework of the semiclassical approximation, we derive the Boltzmann equation describing the dynamics of colorless plasmons in a hot QCD plasma. The probability of the plasmon-plasmon scattering at the leading order in the coupling constant is obtained. This probability is gauge-independent at least in the class of the covariant and temporal gauges. It is noted that the structure of the scattering kernel possesses important qualitative difference from the corresponding one in the Abelian plasma, in spite of the fact that we focused our study on the colorless soft excitations. It is…
The Debye mass m_D is computed nonperturbatively in the deconfined phase of QCD, where chromomagnetic confinement is known to be present. The latter defines m_D to be m_D=c_D\sqrt{σ_s}, where c_D \approx 2 and σ_s=σ_s(T) is the spatial string tension. The resulting magnitude of m_D(T) and temperature dependence are in good agreement with lattice calculations.
In this paper, quarkonium dissociation is investigated in an anisotropic plasma in the hot and dense media. For that purpose, the multidimensional Schrodinger equation is solved analytically by Nikiforov-Uvarov (NU) method for the real part of the potential in an anisotropic medium. The binding energy and dissociation temperature are calculated. In comparison with an isotropic medium, the binding energy of quarkonium is enhanced in the presence of an anisotropic medium. The present results show that the dissociation temperature increases with increasing anisotropic parameter for 1S state of th…
We discuss the excitation of sterile neutrinos in the early universe using general quantum kinetic equations, which also incorporate a possible primordial magnetic field $B$. We find a new contribution to the excitation propability, which has its origin in the shrinkage of the spin vector. In the absence of $B$ nucleosynthesis implies the constraint $\mid Δm^2\mid\sin^22θ_0\lsim 1.6\times 10^{-6}~{\rm eV}^2$ which is more restrictive than previous estimates. We also present examples of possible stringent limits for $B\ne 0$.
The quantum electrodynamical (QED) short wavelength correction on plasma wave propagation for a non-relativistic quantum plasma is investigated. A general dispersion relation for a thermal multi-component quantum plasma is derived. It is found that the classical dispersion relation for any wave mode can be modified to include quantum and short wavelength QED effects by simple substitutions of the thermal velocity and the plasma frequency. Furthermore, the dispersion relation has been modified to include QED effects of strong magnetic fields. It is found that strong magnetic fields together wit…
We study the electrical conductivity of hot Abelian plasma containing scalar charge carriers in the leading logarithmic order in coupling constant $α$ using the Boltzmann kinetic equation. The leading contribution to the collision integral is due to the Møller and Bhabha scattering of scalar particles with a singular cross section in the region of small momentum transfer. Regularizing this singularity by taking into account the hard thermal loop corrections to the propagators of intermediate particles, we derive the second order differential equation which determines the kinetic function. We s…
The process of photon splitting is investigated in the presence of strongly magnetized electron-positron plasma. The amplitude of the process is calculated in general case of plasma with nonzero chemical potential and temperature. The polarization selection rules and corresponding partial amplitudes for allowed splitting channels are obtained in the case of charge-symmetric plasma. It is found that the new splitting channel forbidden in magnetized vacuum becomes allowed. The absorption rates of the photon splitting are calculated with taking into account of the photon dispersion and wave funct…
