Special Research Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter publications

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Browsing Special Research Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter publications by Author "Aitchison, I. J. R."

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    Nontopological finite temperature induced fermion number
    (American Physical Society, 2001) Aitchison, I. J. R.; Dunne, Gerald Vincent; Special Research Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter; School of Chemistry and Physics : Physics and Mathematical Physics
    We show that while the zero temperature induced fermion number in a chiral sigma model background depends only on the asymptotic values of the chiral field, at finite temperature the induced fermion number depends also on the detailed shape of the chiral background. We resum the leading low temperature terms to all orders in the derivative expansion, producing a simple result that can be interpreted physically as the different effect of the chiral background on virtual pairs of the Dirac sea and on the real particles of the thermal plasma. By contrast, for a kink background, not of sigma model form, the finite T induced fermion number is temperature dependent but topological.