Colloquium: Field theoretic description of ultrarelativistic electron-positron plasmas

Ultrarelativistic electron-positron plasmas can be produced in high-intensity laser fields and play a role in various astrophysical situations. Their properties can be calculated using QED at finite temperature. Here perturbative QED at finite temperature is used for calculating various important properties, such as the equation of state, dispersion relations of collective plasma modes of photons and electrons, Debye screening, damping rates, mean free paths, collision times, transport coefficients, and particle production rates, of ultrarelativistic electron-positron plasmas. In particular, the focus is on electron-positron plasmas produced with ultrastrong lasers.

Figure 1

One-loop polarization tensor.

Figure 2

Photon dispersion relation.

Figure 3

Electron dispersion relation.

Figure 4

Lowest order diagram for electron-electron scattering.

Figure 5

Diagrams defining the collisional energy loss.

Figure 6

Diagrams defining the photon damping rate.

Figure 7

Lowest order contribution of the muon production.