2003/02/18 by Stefan Leupold, Leupold, Stefan
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/0302142
12 pages, Revtex4, no figures
arxiv created 2003/02/18 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
The heat kernel method is extended to the case of finite temperature. Special emphasis is given to the study of gauge theories. Due to the compactness of space in the Euclidean time direction (inverse temperature) the field strength cannot completely characterize the gauge fields. This is just a manifestation of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. The field strength has to be supplemented by the Polyakov loop. Only if the latter is taken into account one obtains gauge covariant results for the generalized Seeley-DeWitt coefficients of the heat kernel expansion.