Abstract
The gauge-(in)dependence problem of the fermion damping rate in hot gauge theories is carefully examined to the effective one-loop order using a recently proposed resummation method in terms of the so-called "hard thermal loops." Explicit analysis is given in the case of a heavy fermion [Formula: see text], which enables us to investigate the essential point of the controversy in detail. Calculation in general covariant gauges shows in which calculation procedure we can get a gauge-parameter independent result. We also show, with explicit calculations, that the difference in the damping rate in the Landau and the Coulomb gauges is nonleading. Thus the leading-order damping rate is gauge independent within the Coulomb and general covariant gauges if an appropriate calculation procedure is employed.
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