Transport coefficients and quantum fields

Abstract

Various aspects of transport coefficients in quantum field theory are reviewed. We describe recent progress in the calculation of transport coefficients in hot gauge theories using Kubo formulas, paying attention to the fulfillment of Ward identities. We comment on why the color conductivity in hot QCD is much simpler to compute than the electrical conductivity. The nonperturbative extraction of transport coefficients from lattice QCD calculations is briefly discussed.

Comments: 15 pages with 9 eps figures. Combined invited talk by G.A. and poster by J.M.M.R. presented at Strong and Electroweak Matter (SEWM 2002), Heidelberg, Germany, 2-5 Oct 2002