Equal-Time Hierarchies in Quantum Transport Theory

We investigate in the equal-time formalism the derivation and truncation of infinite hierarchies of equations of motion for the energy moments of the covariant Wigner function. From these hierarchies we then extract kinetic equations for the physical distribution functions which are related to low-order energy moments, and show how to determine the higher order moments in terms of these lowest order ones. We apply the general formalism to scalar and spinor QED with classical background fields and compare with the results derived from the three-dimensional Wigner transformation method.