High temperature fermion propagator: Resummation and gauge dependence of the damping rate

Dec, 1991
15 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 45 (1992) R4381-R4384
Report number:
  • BI-TP-91-38

Citations per year

199220002008201620240246810
Abstract: (APS)
The gauge-fixing dependence of the damping rate of the QED and QCD fermionic excitations at high temperatures and long wavelengths is reexamined in detail using the effective leading-order perturbation expansion developed by Braaten and Pisarski. In contrast with what is expected from recent formal discussions, explicit calculations in covariant gauges yield a fermionic damping rate that is gauge parameter dependent. This result has general implications for gauge theories at nonzero temperature.
  • fermion: propagator
  • temperature: high
  • quantum electrodynamics
  • quantum chromodynamics
  • dependence: gauge
  • perturbation theory
  • Ward identity
  • plasma: damping