arXiv subjects

Michael Strickland

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Strickland.

209 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

arXiv1999

Hard-thermal-loop Resummation of the Free Energy of a Hot Quark-Gluon Plasma

The quark contribution to the free energy of a hot quark-gluon plasma is calculated to leading order in hard-thermal-loop (HTL) perturbation theory. This method selectively resums higher order corrections associated with plasma effects, such as screening, quasiparticles, and Landau damping. Comparing to the weak-coupling expansion of QCD, the error in the one-loop HTL free energy is of order alpha_s, but the large alpha_s^(3/2) correction from QCD plasma effects is included exactly.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

Hard-thermal-loop Resummation of the Thermodynamics of a Hot Gluon Plasma

We calculate the thermodynamic functions of a hot gluon plasma to leading order in hard-thermal-loop (HTL) perturbation theory. Effects associated with screening, gluon quasiparticles, and Landau damping are resummed to all orders. The ultraviolet divergences generated by the HTL propagator corrections can be cancelled by a counterterm that depends on the thermal gluon mass parameter. The HTL thermodynamic functions are compared to those from lattice gauge theory calculations and from quasiparticle models. For reasonable values of the HTL parameters, the deviations from lattice results for T > 2 T_c have the correct sign and roughly the correct magnitude to be accounted for by next-to-leading order corrections in HTL perturbation theory.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

Critical Behaviour of a Homogeneous Bose Gas at Finite Temperature

A homogeneous non-relativistic Bose gas is investigated at finite temperature using renormalization group methods. The phase transition is shown to be second order and the effective chemical potential and the effective quartic coupling vanish at the critical temperature. We obtain the critical exponent $ν=0.73$ at leading order in the derivative expansion.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1999

Optimization of Renormalization Group Flow

Renormalization group flow equations for scalar lambda Phi^4 are generated using three classes of smooth smearing functions. Numerical results for the critical exponent nu in three dimensions are calculated by means of a truncated series expansion of the blocked potential. We demonstrate how the convergence of nu as a function of the order of truncation can be improved through a fine tuning of the smoothness of the smearing functions.

hep-th↗

arXiv1999

Hard-thermal-loop Resummation of the Free Energy of a Hot Gluon Plasma

We calculate the free energy of a hot gluon plasma to leading order in hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory. Effects associated with screening, gluon quasiparticles, and Landau damping are resummed to all orders. The ultraviolet divergences generated by the hard-thermal-loop propagator corrections can be cancelled by a temperature-independent counterterm. The deviation of the hard-thermal-loop free energy from lattice QCD results for T > 2 T_c has the correct sign and roughly the correct magnitude to be accounted for by next-to-leading order corrections.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

Application of Renormalization Group Techniques to a Homogeneous Bose Gas at Finite Temperature

A homogeneous Bose gas is investigated at finite temperature using renormalization group techniques. A non--perturbative flow equation for the effective potential is derived using sharp and smooth cutoff functions. Numerical solutions of these equations show that the system undergoes a second order phase transition in accordance with universality arguments. We obtain the critical exponent $ν=0.73$ to leading order in the derivative expansion.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1998

Non-Perturbative QED and QCD at Finite Temperature

We present results of numerical solutions of Schwinger-Dyson equations for the finite-temperature quark and electron propagators. It is shown that both strongly coupled QED and QCD undergo a chiral symmetry restoring phase transition as the temperature is increased. We go beyond the bare vertex or "rainbow" approximation by applying the finite-temperature Ward-Takahashi identity to constrain the non-perturbative vertex function.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1998

Scheme Independence of Blocking Transformation in Finite-Temperature Renormalization Group

The finite-temperature renormalization group is formulated via the Wilson-Kadanoff blocking transformation. Momentum modes and the Matsubara frequencies are coupled by constraints from a smearing function which plays the role of an infrared cutoff regulator. Using the scalar lambda phi^4 theory as an example, we consider four general types of smearing functions and show that, to zeroth-order in the derivative expansion, they yield qualitatively the same temperature dependence of the running constants and the same critical exponents within numerical accuracy.

hep-th↗

arXiv1997

Dimensional Crossover and Effective Exponents

We investigate the critical behavior of the lambda phi^4 theory defined on S^1 x R^d having two finite length scales beta, the circumference of S^1, and k^{-1}, the blocking scale introduced by the renormalization group transformation. By numerically solving the coupled differential RG equations for the finite-temperature blocked potential U_{beta,k}(Phi) and the wavefunction renormalization constant Z_{beta,k}(Phi), we demonstrate how the finite-size scaling variable betabar = beta k determines whether the phase transition is (d+1)- or d-dimensional in the limits betabar >> 1 and betabar << 1, respectively. For the intermediate values of betabar, finite-size effects play an important role. We also discuss the failure of the polynomial expansion of the effective potential near criticality.

hep-th↗

arXiv1996

Effective Critical Exponents from Finite Temperature Renormalization Group

Effective critical exponents for the λϕ^4 scalar field theory are calculated as a function of the renormalization group block size k_o^{-1} and inverse critical temperature β_c. Exact renormalization group equations are presented up to first order in the derivative expansion and numerical solutions are obtained with and without polynomial expansion of the blocked potential. For a finite temperature system in d dimensions, it is shown that \barβ_c = β_c k_o determines whether the d-dimensional (\barβ_c << 1) or (d+1)-dimensional (\barβ_c >> 1) fixed point governs the phase transition. The validity of a polynomial expansion of the blocked potential near criticality is also addressed.

hep-th↗

arXiv1995

Renormalization Group Approach to Field Theory at Finite Temperature

Scalar field theory at finite temperature is investigated via an improved renormalization group prescription which provides an effective resummation over all possible non-overlapping higher loop graphs. Explicit analyses for the lambda phi^4 theory are performed in d=4 Euclidean space for both low and high temperature limits. We generate a set of coupled equations for the mass parameter and the coupling constant from the renormalization group flow equation. Dimensional reduction and symmetry restoration are also explored with our improved approach.

hep-th↗