New insights into the analytic structure of correlation functions via kinetic theory

Abstract

The way a relativistic system approaches fluid dynamical behaviour can be understood physically through the signals that will contribute to its linear response to perturbations. What these signals are is captured in the analytic structure of the retarded correlation function. The non-analyticities can be grouped into three types based on their dimension in the complex frequency plane. In this paper, we will use kinetic theory to find how we can calculate their corresponding signals. In the most general case of a system with particles that have a continuum of thermalization rates, we find that a non-analytic region appears. To calculate its signal, we introduce the non-analytic area density that describes the properties of this region, and we construct a method to calculate it. Further, to take into account the ambiguity present in signal analysis, following from manipulations of the non-analyticities, we will identify two specific choices called pictures with interesting analytic properties and compare in what scenarios each picture is most useful.