Real-time contour propagator for high temperature dimensional reduction

Abstract

We discuss the extension of dimensional reduction in thermal field theory at high temperature to real-time correlation functions. It is shown that the perturbative corrections to the leading classical behavior of a scalar bosonic field theory are determined by an effective contour propagator. On the real-time-branch of the time-path contour the effective propagator is obtained by subtracting the classical propagator from the contour propagator of thermal field theory, whereas on the Euclidean branch it reduces to the non-static Matsubara propagator of standard dimensional reduction.