Cumulants in perturbation expansions for non-equilibrium field theory

The formulation of perturbation expansions for a quantum field theory of strongly interacting systems in a general nonequilibrium state is discussed. Non-vanishing initial correlations are included in the formulation of the perturbation expansion in terms of cumulants. The cumulants are shown to be the suitable candidate for summing up the perturbation expansion. Also a linked-cluster theorem for the perturbation series with cumulants is presented. Finally, a generating functional of the perturbation series with initial correlations is studied. We apply the methods to a simple model of a fermion-boson system.