This book provides an overview on transport theories, focusing on applications and the relativistic off-shell transport theory which are of particular interest for physicists working in the field of relativistic strong-interaction physics, e.g. relativistic or ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions or the evolution of the early universe. In this regard, a thorough derivation of the transport equations and a careful analysis of the approximations employed is given. The text is enriched with a multitude of Appendices that partly recall elements of quantum mechanics and field theory or present examples for specific models. Specific exercises are given throughout the chapters. As a basic knowledge the reader should be familiar with quantum mechanics and its principles as well as some basic concepts of the quantum many-body physics and field theory. All chapters close with a short summary and numerical calculations are provided to master and illustrate the subject.

Autorentext

Wolfgang Cassing is a retired professor of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Giessen, Germany. He obtained his diploma degree in physics at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Münster in 1977, a Ph.D. degree in philosophy in 1978 and a Ph.D. degree in physics in 1980 at the University of Münster. During the period 1980-1984 he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, on the dynamics of low-energy heavy-ion reactions and obtained a permanent position in theoretical physics at the University of Giessen starting from 1985. In spring 1986 he finished his habilitation at the Technical University of Darmstadt and received a call as a professor in theoretical physics at the University of Giessen in 1991. Since spring 1992 he is professor for theoretical heavy-ion physics at the University of Giessen, served repeatedly as a director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, as a dean of studies for the faculty of mathematics and informatics, physics and geography as well as senator for the University of Giessen until retirement in spring 2019. His research interests include nonrelativistic and relativistic many-body theory, transport theories for heavy-ion collisions, field theories as well as computational physics.

Inhalt

1 Introduction2 Nonrelativistic on-shell kinetic theories

2.1 Time-evolution of an N-body interacting Fermi system 2.2 The density-matrix formalism

2.3 The Vlasov equation

2.4 The collision term according to Uehling-Uhlenbeck 2.5 Including higher order interactions

2.6 Numerical solutions

3 Relativistic on-shell kinetic theories 3.1 Covariant transport equations

3.2 Multi-particle transitions

4 Relativistic dynamics and off-shell transport 4.1 Relativistic formulations

4.2 Full versus approximate dynamics

4.3 Derivation of off-shell relativistic transport theory 4.4 Kadanoff-Baym dynamics for fermions

4.5 Spectral evolution of vector mesons in heavy-ion collisions

4.6 Electromagnetic field evolution in ultra-relativistic collisions

Appendices