Hard Thermal Loops, Chern-Simons Theory and the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Abstract

The generating functional for hard thermal loops in QCD is important in setting up a resummed perturbation theory. I review how this functional is related to the eikonal for a Chern-Simons theory, and using an auxiliary field, to the gauged WZNW-action. The induced current due to hard thermal loops, properly incorporating damping effects, is also briefly discussed. (Invited talk at the Third Worshop on Thermal Field Theories, Banff, Canada, August, 1993.)