Towards next-to-leading order transport coefficients from the four-particle irreducible effective action

Transport coefficients can be obtained from two-point correlators using the Kubo formulas. It has been shown that the full leading order result for electrical conductivity and (QCD) shear viscosity is contained in the resummed two-point function that is obtained from the three-loop three-particle irreducible resummed effective action. The theory produces all leading order contributions without the necessity for power counting, and in this sense it provides a natural framework for the calculation. In this article we study the four-loop four-particle irreducible effective action for a scalar theory with cubic and quartic interactions, with a nonvanishing field expectation value. We obtain a set of integral equations that determine the resummed two-point vertex function. A next-to-leading order contribution to the viscosity could be obtained from this set of coupled equations.