matt@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (12/06/84)
Statistical Mechanics in a Covariant Gauge
Matt Crawford
Department of Physics, University of Chicago
5640 S. Ellis, Chicago IL 60615
ABSTRACT
Many astrophysical and other problems require renormalizable field
theory calculations to be performed at non-zero temperature. An
operator formalism is presented here for gauge fields coupled to
scalars in the covariant 't Hooft--Feynman gauge. It is shown that
the introduction of projection operators into thermal averages can be
avoided by a simple change in the definition of the trace operation.
The partition function and finite-temperature propagators are derived
in real time for spontaneously broken gauge theories.
Submitted to the Department of Physics of the University of Chicago
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree.