Rigorous theory of nuclear fusion rates in a plasma

Real-time thermal field theory is used to reveal the structure of plasma corrections to nuclear reactions. Previous results are recovered in a fashion that clarifies their nature, and new extensions are made. Brown and Yaffe have introduced the methods of effective quantum field theory into plasma physics. They are used here to treat the interesting limiting case of dilute but very highly charged particles reacting in a dilute, one-component plasma. The highly charged particles are very strongly coupled to this background plasma. The effective field theory proves that this mean field solution plus the one-loop term dominate; higher loop corrections are negligible even though the problem involves strong coupling. Such analytic results for very strong coupling are rarely available, and they can serve as benchmarks for testing computer models.