Multiple Scattering Expansion of the Self-Energy at Finite Temperature

An often used rule that the thermal correction to the self-energy is the thermal phase-space times the forward scattering amplitude from target particles is shown to be the leading term in an exact multiple scattering expansion. Starting from imaginary-time finite-temperature field theory, a rigorous expansion for the retarded self-energy is derived. The relationship to the thermodynamic potential is briefly discussed.