Measure-valued free-energy minimizers for trapped bosons with repulsive Coulomb interaction

Abstract

We study a free-energy minimization problem for a trapped semiclassical Bose gas with repulsive Coulomb self-interaction. Because the bosonic entropy density has zero recession slope, the natural relaxation is posed over nonnegative finite Radon measures on phase space, and a minimizer may have a singular component. We interpret this component as condensation within the relaxed semiclassical model. We prove existence and uniqueness at every positive temperature, derive the Euler-Lagrange contact condition and an obstacle-type formula for the condensed density, and establish sharp phase boundaries under only the standing continuity assumptions on the trap. At fixed mass there is a unique finite positive critical temperature, with condensation precisely below it. At fixed temperature there is a sharp critical mass, possibly infinite, separating normal and condensed minimizers. For harmonic traps we obtain a sharp confinement-strength dichotomy. We also prove an abstract conditional variational-stability statement for measure-valued curves that conserve mass and satisfy the free-energy inequality.