Imaginary part of the next-to-leading-order static gluon self-energy in an anisotropic plasma
- Brandon University, Brandon, Manitoba, R7A 6A9 (Canada) and Winnipeg Institute for Theoretical Physics, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2 (Canada)
Using hard-loop (HL) effective theory for an anisotropic non-Abelian plasma, which even in the static limit involves nonvanishing HL vertices, we calculate the imaginary part of the static next-to-leading-order gluon self-energy in the limit of a small anisotropy and with external momentum parallel to the anisotropy direction. At leading order, the static propagator has spacelike poles corresponding to plasma instabilities. On the basis of a calculation using bare vertices, it has been conjectured that, at next-to-leading order, the static gluon self-energy acquires an imaginary part which regulates these spacelike poles. We find that the one-loop resummed expression taken over naively from the imaginary-time formalism does yield a nonvanishing imaginary part even after including all HL vertices. However, this result is not correct. Starting from the real-time formalism, which is required in a nonequilibrium situation, we construct a resummed retarded HL propagator with correct causality properties and show that the static limit of the retarded one-loop-resummed gluon self-energy is real. This result is also required for the time-ordered propagator to exist at next-to-leading order.
- OSTI ID:
- 21322792
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 80, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.80.065035; (c) 2009 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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