Nonperturbative dynamics of hot non-Abelian gauge fields: beyond the leading log approximation - art. no. 125013

Many aspects of high-temperature gauge theories, such as the electroweak ba ryon number violation rate, color conductivity, and the hard gluon damping rate, have previously been understood only at leading logarithmic order (th at is, neglecting effects suppressed only by an inverse logarithm of the ga uge coupling). We discuss how to systematically go beyond leading logarithm ic order in the analysis of physical quantities. Specifically, we extend to next-to-leading-log order (NLLO) the simple lending-log effective theory d ue to Bodeker that describes non-perturbative color physics in hat non-Abel ian plasmas. A suitable scaling analysis is used to show that no new operat ors enter the effective theory at next-to-leading-log order. However, a NLL O calculation of the color conductivity is required, and we report the resu lting value. Our NLLO result for the color conductivity can be trivially co mbined with previous numerical work by Moore to yield a NLLO result for the hot electroweak baryon number violation rate.