THERMAL FIELD THEORY IN NON-EQUILIBRIUM STATES

Abstract

Conventional transport theory is not really applicable to nonequilibrium systems which exhibit strong quantum effects. We present two different approaches to overcome this problem. Firstly we point out how transport equations may be derived that incorporate a nontrivial spectral function as a typical quantum effect, and test this approach in a toy model of a strongly interacting degenerate plasma. Secondly we explore a path to include nonequilibrium effects into quantum field theory through momentum mixing transformations in Fock space. Although the two approaches are completely orthogonal, they lead to the same coherent conclusion.