Abstract
Bosonic chemical potentials for a variety of relativistic field theories are introduced via the methods of functional integrals with the aim of studying the relationship between Bose-Einstein condensation and spontaneous symmetry breaking. The models studied include the noninteracting and the self-interacting charged scalar field, scalar electrodynamics and the Higgs model, and the Weinberg-Salam model. In general the chemical potential acts as an effective symmetry-breaking parameter although the phase diagrams for the two cases (m2<0 and m2>0) look very different. It is found that the symmetry-restoring temperature in the Weinberg-Salam model increases with increasing electric charge density. Finally, the analysis of Jakobsen, Kon, and Segal of a conserved isotropic total angular momentum for the cosmic background radiation is shown to be erroneous.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 426-439 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Physical Review D |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1981 |