Hard thermal effective actions in the Schwinger formulation

Abstract

We derive the properties of hard thermal effective actions in gauge theories from the point of view of Schwinger's proper time formulation. This analysis is simplified by introducing a set of generalized energy and momenta which are conserved and are non-local in general. These constants of motion, which embody energy-momentum exchanges between the fields and the particles along their trajectories, can be related to a class of gauge invariant or covariant potentials in the hard thermal regime. We show that in this regime the generalized energy, which is non-local in general, generates the relevant non-local behavior of hard thermal effective actions which become local only in the static limit.