Euclidean thermal correlation functions in local QFT

TL;DR

This paper explores the analytic properties of scalar thermal correlation functions in local quantum field theory, showing how locality constrains spectral structures and allows non-perturbative effects to be computed directly from Euclidean correlators.

Contribution

It provides a framework for understanding how locality influences spectral properties and enables direct calculation of non-perturbative effects from Euclidean correlation functions.

Findings

Locality imposes significant constraints on spectral structures.

Non-perturbative effects can be computed directly from Euclidean correlators.

The work avoids the inverse problem in thermal QFT analysis.

Abstract

In this work we outline the general analytic characteristics satisfied by scalar correlation functions at finite temperature in local quantum field theory. We demonstrate that the locality of the fields in particular imposes significant constraints on the spectral structure of the theory, and that this enables the non-perturbative effects experienced by thermal particle states to be directly calculated from Euclidean correlation functions, avoiding the inverse problem.