QED plasma in a background of static gravitational fields

Abstract

We obtain the effective Lagrangian of static gravitational fields interacting with a QED plasma at high temperature. Using the equivalence between the static hard thermal loops and those with zero external energy-momentum, we compute the effective Lagrangian up to two-loop order. We also obtain a non-perturbative contribution which arises from the sum of all infrared divergent ring-diagrams. From the gauge and Weyl symmetries of the theory, we deduce to all orders that this effective Lagrangian is equivalent to the pressure of a QED plasma in Minkowski space-time, with the global temperature replaced by the Tolman local temperature.