Hadrons at Finite Temperature

An elementary introduction to hadronic properties at finite temperature and density that develops real-time methods of thermal field theory.

Samirnath Mallik (Author), Sourav Sarkar (Author)

9781107145313, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 October 2016

262 pages, 32 b/w illus.
25.4 x 18.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.64 kg

High energy laboratories are performing experiments in heavy ion collisions to explore the structure of matter at high temperature and density. This elementary book explains the basic ideas involved in the theoretical analysis of these experimental data. It first develops two topics needed for this purpose, namely hadron interactions and thermal field theory. Chiral perturbation theory is developed to describe hadron interactions and thermal field theory is formulated in the real-time method. In particular, spectral form of thermal propagators is derived for fields of arbitrary spin and used to calculate loop integrals. These developments are then applied to find quark condensate and hadron parameters in medium, including dilepton production. Finally, the non-equilibrium method of statistical field theory to calculate transport coefficients is reviewed. With technical details explained in the text and appendices, this book should be accessible to researchers as well as graduate students interested in thermal field theory.

Preface
Notation
1. Free fields in vacuum
2. Spontaneous symmetry breaking
3. Chiral perturbation theory
4. Thermal propagators
5. Thermal Perturbation Theory
6. Thermal parameters
7. Two-loop results
8. Heavy ion collisions
9. Non-equilibrium processes
Appendix A. General fields
Appendix B. Global symmetries
Appendix C. Exponential operator
Appendix D. Propagator at origin of coordinates
Appendix E. Reaction rates in vacuum and medium
Appendix F. Coupling constants
Appendix G. Imaginary time method
Appendix H. Quark condensate from partition function
Appendix I. Quark condensate from density expansion
Index.

Subject Areas: Mathematical physics [PHU], Particle & high-energy physics [PHP], Nuclear physics [PHN]