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Microphysical Approach To Nonequilibrium Dynamics Of Quantum Fields, Marcelo Gleiser, Rudnei O. Ramos
Microphysical Approach To Nonequilibrium Dynamics Of Quantum Fields, Marcelo Gleiser, Rudnei O. Ramos
Dartmouth Scholarship
We examine the nonequilibrium dynamics of a self-interacting λφ4 scalar field theory. Using a real time formulation of finite temperature field theory we derive, up to two loops and O(λ2), the effective equation of motion describing the approach to equilibrium. We present a detailed analysis of the approxi- mations used in order to obtain a Langevin-like equation of motion, in which the noise and dissipation terms associated with quantum fluctuations obey a fluctuation-dissipation relation. We show that, in general, the noise is colored (time-dependent) and multiplicative (couples nonlinearly to the field), even though it is still Gaussian distributed. The noise …