Structure of the Gluon Propagator at Finite Temperature

✍ Scribed by H.Arthur Weldon

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 132 KB
• Volume: 271
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-4916
• DOI: 10.1006/aphy.1998.5873

✦ Synopsis

The thermal self-energy of gluons generally depends on four Lorentz-invariant functions when the gauge-fixing condition is rotationally invariant. Only two of these occur in the hard thermal loop approximation of Braaten and Pisarski because of the abelian Ward identity K + 6 +& htl =0. For the exact self-energy it is known that K + 6 +& {0 and that the Slavnov Taylor identity requires a non-linear relation among three of the Lorentz-invariant self-energy functions: (6 C ) 2 =(K 2 &6 L ) 6 D . This relation simplifies the exact gluon propagator to a form containing only two types of poles: one that determines the behavior of transverse electric and magnetic gluons and one that controls the longitudinally polarized electric gluons. It agrees with known cases in the literature.