Energy loss of a heavy fermion in a hot QED plasma

Abstract

The energy loss $\frac{\mathrm{dE}}{\mathrm{dx}}$ for a heavy lepton propagating through a high-temperature QED plasma is calculated to leading order in the QED coupling constant. The screening effects of the plasma are computed consistently using a resummation of perturbation theory in the small-momentum-transfer region. At large momentum transfer, recoil effects are properly taken into account. Our complete leading-order calculation differs significantly from previous calculations.