Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Scientific paper
1994-05-23
Phys.Rev.D50:2848-2869,1994
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
43 pages, LA-UR-94-783 (PRD, in press), uuencoded PostScript
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevD.50.2848
An effective action technique for the time evolution of a closed system consisting of one or more mean fields interacting with their quantum fluctuations is presented. By marrying large $N$ expansion methods to the Schwinger-Keldysh closed time path (CTP) formulation of the quantum effective action, causality of the resulting equations of motion is ensured and a systematic, energy conserving and gauge invariant expansion about the quasi-classical mean field(s) in powers of $1/N$ developed. The general method is exposed in two specific examples, $O(N)$ symmetric scalar $\l\F^4$ theory and Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) with $N$ fermion fields. The $\l\F^4$ case is well suited to the numerical study of the real time dynamics of phase transitions characterized by a scalar order parameter. In QED the technique may be used to study the quantum non-equilibrium effects of pair creation in strong electric fields and the scattering and transport processes in a relativistic $e^+e^-$ plasma. A simple renormalization scheme that makes practical the numerical solution of the equations of motion of these and other field theories is described.
Anderson Paul R.
Cooper Fred
Habib Salman
Kluger Yuval
Mottola Emil
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