Search results for "Thermal quantum field theory"

Multiplications of Distributions in One Dimension and a First Application to Quantum Field Theory

2002

In a previous paper we introduced a class of multiplications of distributions in one dimension. Here we furnish different generalizations of the original definition and we discuss some applications of these procedures to the multiplication of delta functions and to quantum field theory. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

Electromagnetic mass difference of pions at low temperature

1999

We compute low temperature corrections to the electromagnetic mass difference of pions in the chiral limit. The computation is done in a model independent way in the framework of chiral perturbation theory, using the background field method and the hard thermal loop approximation. We also generalize at low temperature the sum rule of Das et al. We find that the mass difference between the charged and neutral pions decreases at low temperature $T$ with respect to the T=0 value. This is so in spite of the fact that charged particles always get a thermal correction to their masses of order $\sim eT$, where $e$ is the gauge coupling constant. Our result can be understood as a consequence of the…

Quantum kinetic theory for fermions in temporally varying backrounds

2008

We derive quantum kinetic equations for fermions in a homogeneous time-dependent background in presence of decohering collisions, by use of the Schwinger-Keldysh CTP-formalism. The quantum coherence (between particles and antiparticles) is found to arise from new spectral solutions for the dynamical 2-point correlation function in the mean field limit. The physical density matrix $\rho$ and its dynamics is shown to be necessarily dependent on the extrenous information on the system, and expressions that relate $\rho$ to fundamental coherence functions and fermionic particle and antiparticle numbers are derived. For an interacting system we demonstrate how smooth decoherence effects are indu…

Kinetic transport theory with quantum coherence

2008

We derive transport equations for fermions and bosons in spatially or temporally varying backgrounds with special symmetries, by use of the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. In a noninteracting theory the coherence information is shown to be encoded in new singular shells for the 2-point function. Imposing this phase space structure to the interacting theory leads to a a self-consistent equation of motion for a physcial density matrix, including coherence and a well defined collision integral. The method is applied e.g. to demonstrate how an initially coherent out-of-equlibrium state approaches equlibrium through decoherence and thermalization.

Flavour mixing transport theory and resonant leptogenesis

2021

We derive non-equilibrium quantum transport equations for flavour-mixing fermions. We develop the formalism mostly in the context of resonant leptogenesis with two mixing Majorana fermions and one lepton flavour, but our master equations are valid more generally in homogeneous and isotropic systems. We give a hierarchy of quantum kinetic equations, valid at different approximations, that can accommodate helicity and arbitrary mass differences. In the mass-degenerate limit the equations take the familiar form of density matrix equations. We also derive the semiclassical Boltzmann limit of our equations, including the CP-violating source, whose regulator corresponds to the flavour coherence d…

Quantum transport and the phase space structure of the Wightman functions

2019

We study the phase space structure of exact quantum Wightman functions in spatially homogeneous, temporally varying systems. In addition to the usual mass shells, the Wightman functions display additional coherence shells around zero frequency $k_0=0$, which carry the information of the local quantum coherence of particle-antiparticle pairs. We find also other structures, which encode non-local correlations in time, and discuss their role and decoherence. We give a simple derivation of the cQPA formalism, a set of quantum transport equations, that can be used to study interacting systems including the local quantum coherence. We compute quantum currents created by a temporal change in a par…

Linear response theory: many-body formulation

2013

Finite temperature effects on CP violating asymmetries

1997

We compute the CP violating decay asymmetries relevant for baryogenesis scenarios involving the out of equilibrium decays of heavy particles, including the finite temperature effects arising from the background of light thermal particles which are present during the decay epoch. Thermal effects can modify the size of CP violation by a sizeable fraction in the decay of scalar particles, but we find interesting cancellations in the thermal corrections affecting the asymmetries in the decays of fermions, as well as in the decay of scalars in supersymmetric theories. We also estimate the effects which arise from the motion of the decaying particles with respect to the background plasma.

Electroweak phase transition in left-right symmetric models

1998

We study the finite-temperature effective potential of minimal left-right symmetric models containing a bidoublet and two triplets in the scalar sector. We perform a numerical analysis of the parameter space compatible with the requirement that baryon asymmetry is not washed out by sphaleron processes after the electroweak phase transition. We find that the spectrum of scalar particles for these acceptable cases is consistent with present experimental bounds.

Finite temperature phase diagrams of gauge theories

2012

We discuss finite temperature phase diagrams of SU(N) gauge theory with massless fermions as a function of the number of fermion flavors. Inside the conformal window we find a phase boundary separating two different conformal phases. Below the conformal window we find different phase structures depending on if the beta function of the theory has a first or higher order zero at the lower boundary of the conformal window. We also outline how the associated behaviors will help in distinguishing different types of theories using lattice simulations.