Nonequilibrium dynamics of the O(N) linear sigma model

Abstract

We investigate the out-of-equilibrium evolution of a classical background field and its quantum fluctuations in the scalar O(N) model with spontaneous symmetry breaking. We consider the 2-loop 2PI effective action in the Hartree approximation, i.e., including bubble resummation but without non-local contributions to the Dyson-Schwinger equation. We concentrate on the (nonequilibrium) phase structure of the model and observe a first-order transition between a spontaneously broken and a symmetric phase at low and high energy densities, respectively. So typical structures expected in thermal equilibrium are encountered in nonequilibrium dynamics even at early times before thermalization.