Classical statistical mechanics and Landau damping

We study the retarded response function in scalar theta(4)-theory at finite temperature. We find that in the high-temperature limit the imaginary part of the self-energy is given by the classical theory to leading order in the coupling. In particular the plasmon damping rate is a purely classical effect to leading order, as shown by Aarts and Smit. The dominant contribution to Landau damping is given by the propagation of classical fields in a heat bath of non-interacting fields. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.