Kinetic Theory of Quantum Electrodynamic Plasma in a Strong Electromagnetic Field: I. The Covariant Formalism

We present a covariant approach to the kinetic theory of quantum electrodynamic plasma in a strong electromagnetic field. The method is based on the relativistic von Neumann equation for the nonequilibrium statistical operator defined on spacelike hyperplanes in Minkowski space. We use the canonical quantization of the system on hyperplanes and a covariant generalization of the Coulomb gauge. The condensate mode associated with the mean electromagnetic field is separated from the photon degrees of freedom by a time-dependent unitary transformation of the dynamic variables and the nonequilibrium statistical operator. This allows using expansions of correlation functions and of the statistical operator in powers of the fine structure constant even in the presence of a strong electromagnetic field. We present a general scheme for deriving kinetic equations in the hyperplane formalism.