S-parameter at Non-Zero Temperature and Chemical Potential

Ulrik Ishøj Søndergaard, Claudio Pica, Francesco Sannino

Published 2011-07-09Version 1

We compute the finite-temperature and matter density corrections to the S-parameter at the one loop level. At non-zero temperature T and matter density Lorentz symmetry breaks and therefore we suggest a suitable generalization of the S-parameter. By computing the plasma correction, we discover a reduction of the S-parameter in the physically relevant region of small external momenta for any non-zero chemical potential and T. In particular, the S-parameter vanishes at small m/T, where m is the mass of the fermions, due to the finite extent of the temporal direction. Our results are directly applicable to the determination of the S-parameter via first principle lattice simulations performed with anti-periodic boundary conditions in the temporal direction.