Finite time calculations for hard parton production relevant to the quark-gluon plasma

AdS/CFT computations have been used to describe the energy loss of QCD-like particles moving through a strongly coupled plasma, but little is understood regarding the initial conditions of these jets. We use the Schwinger-Keldysh finite-time formalism applied to an interacting scalar field theory to derive perturbative expressions detailing the system which exists during the initial stages of a high energy collision.In this paper we calculate 〈ϕ〉(x) for a scalar Yukawa model, demonstrate the finiteness of the energy momentum tensor for λϕ⁴ to leading order, and derive an expression for the conditional expectation value of operators to aid in the description jet-like behaviour in interacting theories. (paper)