Photon self-energy at all temperatures and densities in all of phase space

Abstract

In an isotropic background comprised of free charges, the transverse and longitudinal modes of the photon acquire large corrections to their dispersion relations, described by the in-medium photon self-energy. Previous work has developed simple approximations that describe the propagation of on-shell photons in plasmas of varying temperatures and densities. However, off-shell excitations can also receive large medium-induced corrections, and the on-shell approximations have often been used in an effort to capture these effects. In this work we show that the off-shell self-energy can be qualitatively very different than the on-shell case. We develop analytic approximations that are accurate everywhere in phase space, especially in classical and degenerate plasmas. From these, we recover the on-shell expressions in the appropriate limit. Our expressions also reproduce the well-known Lindhard response function from solid-state physics for the longitudinal mode.