Background Field Method in Thermo Field Dynamics Theory for Wave Propagation in Unmagnetized Spinor QED Plasmas

TL;DR

This paper develops a relativistic quantum field theoretical approach using thermo field dynamics to analyze wave propagation in unmagnetized spinor QED plasmas, revealing new phenomena and extending previous scalar QED models.

Contribution

It introduces a background field method within thermo field dynamics for spinor QED plasmas, enabling analysis of non-perturbative effects and extending scalar QED approaches to many-body systems.

Findings

Recovered classical wave dispersion relations in low energy limit.

Discovered zero sound phenomena in electron-positron pair plasma.

Identified effects of relativity, vacuum polarization, and temperature on plasma waves.

Abstract

In this work, a many body relativistic quantum field theory for the collective modes of spinor quantum electrodynamic theory (QED) plasmas is developed. We introduce the thermo field dynamics into the QED plasma study. The nontrivial background field method is used to take account of the non-perturbativity of background charged plasma particles and radiation field. It is an extension of "Furry picture" which is first introduced by Yuan Shi, et al. [Phys. Rev. A 94, 012124 (2016)] in their scalar QED plasma study. However, their wave function method in evaluating the background field of ideal system is hard to extend to the general many body cases. We propose a classical limit method that most perturbative high energy and quantum many body aspects can be included in a practical way. As an example, the wave propagation in unmagnetized electron-positron plasma is discussed. In the low energy limit case, the well known wave dispersion relations for non-relativistic degenerate plasma are recovered. In addition, mass increase of plasma particles due to the relativity, effective charge decrease due to the vacuum polarization, finite light velocity influence on the dispersion relation, and temperature influence on plasma system are discussed. Besides, new phenomenons including the zero sound of the electron-positron pair plasma and the particle production induced by the plasma oscillation are first reported. At last, the high energy limit case is studied.