1998/08/31 by Mark Burgess
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-th
published as Proceedings of the 5th Int. Workshop on Thermal Fields and Their Applications, Regensburg 1998 · Reformatted long equation, otherwise unchanged
arxiv created 1998/09/12 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
Non equilibrium effective field theory is presented as an inhomogeneous field theory, using a formulation which is analogous to that of a gauge theory. This formulation underlines the importance of structural aspects of non-equilibrium, effective field theories. It is shown that, unless proper attention is paid to such structural features, hugely different answers can be obtained for a given model. The exactly soluble two-level atom is used as an example of both the covariant methodology and of the conclusions.