Statistical physics and light-front quantization
- Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025 (United States)
Light-front quantization has important advantages for describing relativistic statistical systems, particularly systems for which boost invariance is essential, such as the fireball created in a heavy ion collision. In this paper we develop light-front field theory at finite temperature and density with special attention to quantum chromodynamics. We construct the most general form of the statistical operator allowed by the Poincare algebra and show that there are no zero-mode related problems when describing phase transitions. We then demonstrate a direct connection between densities in light-front thermal field theory and the parton distributions measured in hard scattering experiments. Our approach thus generalizes the concept of a parton distribution to finite temperature. In light-front quantization, the gauge-invariant Green's functions of a quark in a medium can be defined in terms of just 2-component spinors and have a much simpler spinor structure than the equal-time fermion propagator. From the Green's function, we introduce the new concept of a light-front density matrix, whose matrix elements are related to forward and to off-diagonal parton distributions. Furthermore, we explain how thermodynamic quantities can be calculated in discretized light cone quantization, which is applicable at high chemical potential and is not plagued by the fermion-doubling problem.
- OSTI ID:
- 20705534
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 70, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.70.085017; (c) 2004 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ALGEBRA
DENSITY MATRIX
DISTRIBUTION
GAUGE INVARIANCE
GREEN FUNCTION
HEAVY ION REACTIONS
LIGHT CONE
MATRIX ELEMENTS
PARTON MODEL
PARTONS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
POTENTIALS
PROPAGATOR
QUANTIZATION
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUANTUM MECHANICS
QUARKS
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
SPINORS