Linear sigma model at finite density in the 1/N expansion to next-to-leading order

We study relativistic Bose-Einstein condensation at finite density and temperature using the linear sigma model in the one-particle-irreducible 1/N expansion. We derive the effective potential to next-to-leading (NLO) order and show that it can be renormalized in a temperature-independent manner. As a particular application, we study the thermodynamics of the pion gas in the chiral limit as well as with explicit symmetry breaking. At nonzero temperature we solve the NLO gap equation and show that the results describe the chiral-symmetry-restoring second-order phase transition in agreement with general universality arguments. However, due to nontrivial regularization issues, we are not able to extend the NLO analysis to nonzero chemical potential. © 2008 The American Physical Society