Compton scattering at finite temperature: thermal field dynamics approach

Full text: Compton scattering is a classical problem of quantum electrodynamics and has been studied in its early beginnings. Perturbation theory and Feynman diagram technique enables comprehensive analysis of this problem on the basis of which famous Klein-Nishina formula is obtained [1, 2]. In this work this problem is extended to the case of finite temperature. Finite-temperature effects in Compton scattering is of practical importance for various processes in relativistic thermal plasmas in astrophysics. Recently Compton effect have been explored using closed-time path formalism with temperature corrections estimated [3]. It was found that the thermal cross section can be larger than that for zero-temperature by several orders of magnitude for the high temperature realistic in astrophysics [3]. In our work we use a main tool to account finite-temperature effects, a real-time finite-temperature quantum field theory, so-called thermofield dynamics [4, 5]. Thermofield dynamics is a canonical formalism to explore field-theoretical processes at finite temperature. It consists of two steps, doubling of Fock space and Bogolyubov transformations. Doubling leads to appearing additional degrees of freedom, called tilded operators which together with usual field operators create so-called thermal doublet. Bogolyubov transformations make field operators temperature-dependent. Using this formalism we treat Compton scattering at finite temperature via replacing in transition amplitude zero-temperature propagators by finite-temperature ones. As a result finite-temperature extension of the Klein-Nishina formula is obtained in which differential cross section is represented as a sum of zero-temperature cross section and finite-temperature correction. The obtained result could be useful in quantum electrodynamics of lasers and for relativistic thermal plasma processes in astrophysics where correct account of finite-temperature effects is important. (author)