Approximate spectral functions in thermal field theory

Abstract

Causality requires, that the (anti-) commutator of two interacting field operators vanishes for space-like coordinate differences. This implies, that the Fourier transform of the spectral function of this quantum field should vanish in the space-like domain. We find, that this requirement imposes some constraints on the use of resummed propagators in high temperature gauge theory.

Comments: 15 pages, latex, 3 figures included. Major rewriting of paper. Available also at ftp://tpri6c.gsi.de/pub/phenning/h95comm/ or at http://www.gsi.de/~phenning/pahtft.html