High Temperature Resummation in the Linear $\delta$-Expansion

Abstract

The optimized linear $\delta$-expansion is applied to the $\lambda {\varphi }^4$ theory at high temperature. Using the imaginary time formalism the thermal mass is evaluated perturbatively up to order ${\delta }^2$. A variational procedure associated with the method generates nonperturbative results which are used to obtain the critical temperature for the phase transition. Our results are compared with the ones given by propagator dressing methods.

Comments: 16 pages (2 eps figs,uses epsf), Revtex. Some misprints and errors in the Eqs corrected. New refs added. Version in press PRD