The properties of quark propagation through a hot medium are summarized by the Braaten-Pisarski-Frenkel-Taylor-Wong effective action. The fermion thermal propagator shows a pseudo-Lorentz-invariant particle pole as well as a spacelike cut. In an earlier paper, we performed the explicit quantization of the action in momentum space, and showed how a canonical Dirac field of mass T’ arises. In this paper, we perform the quantization in coordinate space. In the process, we relate the spacelike plasmon cut in the propagator to the homogeneous solutions of the local equaton of motion for auxiliary fields. Our quantization shows how the spacelike cut produces a 90° phase factor in the thermal vacuum at high T. This phase factor is responsible for the vanishing of 〈ψ¯ψ〉 at high T.

• Received 5 October 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.51.4512