The quasiparticle structure of hot gauge theories

The study of the ultrarelativistic plasmas in perturbation theory is plagued with infrared divergences which are not eliminated by the screening corrections. They affect, in particular, the computation of the lifetime of the elementary excitations, thus casting doubt on the validity of the quasiparticle picture. We show that, for Abelian plasmas at least, the infrared problem of the damping rate can be solved by a non-perturbative treatment based on the Bloch-Nordsieck approximation. The resulting expression of the fermion propagator is free of divergences, and exhibits a {\it non-exponential} damping at large times: $S_R(t)\sim \exp\{-\alpha T t \ln\omega_pt\}$, where $\omega_p=gT/3$ is the plasma frequency and $\alpha=g^2/4\pi$.