QED Plasma at Extremely High Temperature and Density

TL;DR

This paper investigates the properties of relativistic QED plasma at extremely high temperatures and densities, relevant to stellar cores and the early universe, using a real-time renormalization approach to compute key plasma parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a method to calculate effective QED parameters in hot and dense media, revealing the existence and characteristics of relativistic QED plasma under extreme conditions.

Findings

Calculated plasma frequency, Debye length, and propagation frequency in high-temperature and high-density regimes.

Demonstrated the existence of QED plasma in stellar cores and early universe conditions.

Provided insights into the short-term existence of QED plasma in superhot, superdense systems.

Abstract

We use the renormalization scheme of QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) in real-time formalism to calculate the effective parameters of the theory, indicating the existence of relativistic QED plasma at extremely high temperatures and extremely high densities. High-density plasma is found inside the stellar cores and high temperature QED plasma could only exist, right after the neutrino decoupling temperature in the early universe, before the nucleosynthesis is complete. Radiation couples with the medium through the vacuum polarization in a hot and dense medium. Calculating the vacuum polarization tensor in a medium, the effect of radiation on matter is investigated in such a medium. We explicitly compute the parameters of QED plasma such as plasma frequency, Debye shielding length and the propagation frequency in terms of temperature and density of the superhot and superdense medium, respectively. This study helps to understand short term existence of QED plasma in the superhot and superdense systems.