Basic zeta functions and some applications in physics

It is the aim of these lectures to introduce some basic zeta functions and their uses in the areas of the Casimir effect and Bose-Einstein condensation. A brief introduction into these areas is given in the respective sections. We will consider exclusively spectral zeta functions, that is zeta functions arising from the eigenvalue spectrum of suitable differential operators. There is a set of technical tools that are at the very heart of understanding analytical properties of essentially every spectral zeta function. Those tools are introduced using the well-studied examples of the Hurwitz, Epstein and Barnes zeta function. It is explained how these different examples of zeta functions can all be thought of as being generated by the same mechanism, namely they all result from eigenvalues of suitable (partial) differential operators. It is this relation with partial differential operators that provides the motivation for analyzing the zeta functions considered in these lectures. Motivations come for example from the questions "Can one hear the shape of a drum?" and "What does the Casimir effect know about a boundary?". Finally "What does a Bose gas know about its container?"Comment: To appear in "A Window into Zeta and Modular Physics", Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Publications, Vol. 57, 2010, Cambridge University Pres

One-loop effective potential in 2D dilaton gravity on hyperbolic plane

The one-loop effective potential in $2D$ dilaton gravity in conformal gauge on the topologically non-trivial plane $\reals \times S^1$ and on the hyperbolic plane $H^2/\Gamma$ is calculated. For arbitrary choice of the tree scalar potential it is shown, that the one-loop effective potential explicitly depends on the reference metric (through the dependence on the radius of the torus or the radius of $H^2/\Gamma$). This phenomenon is absent only for some special choice of the tree scalar potential corresponding to the Liouville potential and leading to one-loop ultraviolet finite theory. The effective equations are discussed and some interpretation of the reference metric dependence of the effective potential is made.Comment: 7 pages, LaTex, UB-ECM-PF 94/