Semiclassical thermodynamics of scalar fields

Abstract

We present a systematic semiclassical procedure to compute the partition function for scalar field theories at finite temperature. The central objects in our scheme are the solutions of the classical equations of motion in imaginary time, with spatially independent boundary conditions. Field fluctuations -- both field deviations around these classical solutions, and fluctuations of the boundary value of the fields -- are resummed in a Gaussian approximation. In our final expression for the partition function, this resummation is reduced to solving certain ordinary differential equations. Moreover, we show that it is renormalizable with the usual 1-loop counterterms.

arXiv comment24 pages, 5 postscript figures

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Quantum statistical correlations in thermal field theories: boundary effective theory
• Pressure of massless hot scalar theory in the boundary effective theory framework
• Zero-mode analysis of quantum statistical physics
• Effective potential in the BET formalism
• Semiclassical calculation of decay rates
• Semiclassical partition function for the double-well potential