Kinetic transport theory with quantum coherence

Abstract

We derive transport equations for fermions and bosons in spatially or temporally varying backgrounds with special symmetries, by use of the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. In a noninteracting theory the coherence information is shown to be encoded in new singular shells for the 2-point function. Imposing this phase space structure to the interacting theory leads to a a self-consistent equation of motion for a physcial density matrix, including coherence and a well defined collision integral. The method is applied e.g. to demonstrate how an initially coherent out-of-equlibrium state approaches equlibrium through decoherence and thermalization.