Phys. Rev. D 61, 085021 (2000) [18 pages]QED effective action at finite temperature: Two-loop dominanceReceived 29 September 1999; published 27 March 2000 We calculate the two-loop effective action of QED for arbitrary constant electromagnetic fields at finite temperature T in the limit of T much smaller than the electron mass. It is shown that in this regime the two-loop contribution always exceeds the influence of the one-loop part due to the thermal excitation of the internal photon. As an application, we study light propagation and photon splitting in the presence of a magnetic background field at low temperature. We furthermore discover a thermally induced contribution to pair production in electric fields. © 2000 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.61.085021
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.61.085021
PACS:
12.20.Ds, 11.10.Wx
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