Euclidean thermal correlation functions in local QFT

Abstract

In this work we outline the general analytic characteristics satisfied by scalar correlation functions at finite temperature in local quantum field theory. We demonstrate that the locality of the fields in particular imposes significant constraints on the spectral structure of the theory, and that this enables the non-perturbative effects experienced by thermal particle states to be directly calculated from Euclidean correlation functions, avoiding the inverse problem.

Comments: 10 pages; v2: additional references and discussion added, matches published version