Effective Lagrangian and Quantum Screening in Charged Condensate
Loading...
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Description
A condensate of charged scalars in a neutralizing background of fermions (e.g., condensed helium-4 nuclei in an electron background in white dwarf cores) is investigated further. We discuss an effective Lagrangian approach to this system and show that the strong screening of an electric charge found previously in arXiv:0806.3692 in a mean-field approximation, is a consequence of a cancellation due to a phonon. The resulting propagators contain terms that strongly modify their infrared behavior. Furthermore, we evaluate a one-loop fermion quantum correction to the screened potential, and find that it is also suppressed by the phonon subtraction. Therefore, charged impurities (e.g., hydrogen or helium-3 nuclei) will be screened efficiently by the condensate.
1+16 pages; v2: typos & minor improvements; v3: one reference and one footnote added; two comments streamlined
1+16 pages; v2: typos & minor improvements; v3: one reference and one footnote added; two comments streamlined