Arnold P, Moore G
Department of Physics, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400714, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4714, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2001 Sep 17;87(12):120401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.120401. Epub 2001 Aug 28.
The leading-order effect of interactions on a homogeneous Bose gas is theoretically predicted to shift the critical temperature by an amount DeltaT(c) approximately equal to ca(sc)n(1/3)T(0) from the ideal gas result T(0), where a(sc) is the scattering length, n is the density, and c is a pure number. There have been several different theoretical estimates for c. We claim to settle the issue by measuring the numerical coefficient in a lattice simulation of O(2) straight phi(4) field theory in three dimensions-an effective theory which, as observed previously in the literature, can be systematically matched to the dilute Bose gas problem to reproduce nonuniversal quantities such as the critical temperature. We find c = 1.32+/-0.02.