Lifetimes of quasiparticles and collective excitations in hot QED plasmas
- Service de Physique Theorique, CE-Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
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 long wavelength, quasistatic, magnetic photons, which are not screened by plasma effects. The leading divergences can be resummed in a nonperturbative treatment based on a generalization of the Bloch-Nordsieck (BN) model at finite temperature. The resulting expression of the fermion propagator is free of infrared problems, and exhibits a nonexponential damping at large times: S{sub R}(t){approximately}exp{l_brace}{minus}{alpha}Ttln{omega}{sub p}t{r_brace}, where {omega}{sub p}=eT/3 is the plasma frequency and {alpha}=e{sup 2}/4{pi}. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
- OSTI ID:
- 471240
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, D, Vol. 55, Issue 2; Other Information: PBD: Jan 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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