We show that the one-loop effective action at finite temperature for a scalar field with quartic interaction has the same renormalized expression as at zero temperature if written in terms of a certain classical field $��_c$, and if we trade free propagators at zero temperature for their finite-temperature counterparts. The result follows if we write the partition function as an integral over field eigenstates (boundary fields) of the density matrix element in the functional Schr��dinger field-representation, and perform a semiclassical expansion in two steps: first, we integrate around the saddle-point for fixed boundary fields, which is the classical field $��_c$, a functional of the boundary fields; then, we perform a saddle-point integration over the boundary fields, whose correlations characterize the thermal properties of the system. This procedure provides a dimensionally-reduced effective theory for the thermal system. We calculate the two-point correlation as an example.

13 pages, 1 figure