arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A. A. Actor.
We present and discuss, at a general level, new mathematical results on the spatial nonuniformity of thermal quantum fields coupled minimally to static background electromagnetic potentials. Two distinct examples are worked through in some detail: uniform (parallel and perpendicular) background electric and magnetic fields coupled to a thermal quantum scalar field.
We study at finite temperature the energy-momentum tensor $T_{μν}(x)$ of (i) a scalar field in arbitrary dimension, and (ii) a spinor field in 1+1 dimensions, interacting with a static background electromagnetic field. $T_{μν}$ separates into an UV divergent part $T_{μν}^{sea}$ representing the virtual sea, and an UV finite part $T_{μν}^{plasma}$ describing the thermal plasma of the matter field. $T_{μν}^{sea}$ remains uniform in the presence of a \underbar{uniform} electric field $\vec E$, while $T_{μν}^{plasma}$ becomes a periodic function with period $Δx=2πT/E$ in the direction parallel to $\vec E$. A related periodicity is found for a uniform static magnetic field if one spatial direction perpendicular to the magnetic field is compactified to a circle.