Interacting Boson System at Finite Temperatures: The treatment of the lattice QCD results

Abstract

We study an interacting relativistic system of charged bosons at finite temperature and fixed isospin density within a thermodynamically consistent mean-field approach. The interaction is represented by repulsive phi-4 and phi-6 self-interactions, which generate a density-dependent effective mass of the bosonic quasiparticles. We formulate the thermodynamics in the Extended Canonical Ensemble, obtained from the grand canonical description by a Legendre transformation from the isospin chemical potential to the conserved isospin density. In the condensed phase the chemical potential is constrained by the Bose-condensation condition and is therefore determined self-consistently through the effective mass. We apply the formalism to a pion-like system at finite isospin and clarify the relation between the isospin chemical-potential conventions used for pion and quark degrees of freedom. Using the convention adopted in lattice-QCD calculations, we compare the pressure, isospin density, energy density, and trace anomaly with lattice results at T=120 MeV. With one constant fitted to the lattice pressure, each model reproduces the lattice isospin density, energy density, and trace anomaly. Both the phi-4 and phi-6 models reproduce the main features of the lattice data, with the phi-6 interaction providing the better description. The Extended Canonical Ensemble provides a convenient framework for treating interacting particle-antiparticle systems across the transition to the Bose-condensed phase.