The perturbative calculation of the lifetime of fermion excitations in a QED plasma at high temperature is plagued with infrared divergences which are not eliminated by the screening corrections. The physical processes responsible for these divergences are the collisions involving the exchange of long wavelength, quasistatic, magnetic photons, which are not screened by plasma effects. The leading divergences can be resummed in a nonperturbative treatment based on a generalization of the Bloch-Nordsieck (BN) model at finite temperature. The resulting expression of the fermion propagator is free of infrared problems, and exhibits a nonexponential damping at large times: $S_R$(t)∼exp{-αTt lnω${}_p$t}, where ${\omega }_p$=eT/3 is the plasma frequency and α=${\mathit{e}}^2$/4π.

• Received 26 July 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.55.973