Degenerate limit thermodynamics beyond leading order for models of dense matter

Analytical formulas for next-to-leading order temperature corrections to the thermal state variables of interacting nucleons in bulk matter are derived in the degenerate limit. The formalism developed is applicable to a wide class of non-relativistic and relativistic models of hot and dense matter currently used in nuclear physics and astrophysics (supernovae, proto-neutron stars and neutron star mergers) as well as in condensed matter physics. We consider the general case of arbitrary dimensionality of momentum space and an arbitrary degree of relativity (for relativistic mean-field theoretical models). For non-relativistic zero-range interactions, knowledge of the Landau effective mass suffices to compute next-to-leading order effects, but in the case of finite-range interactions, momentum derivatives of the Landau effective mass function up to second order are required. Numerical computations are performed to compare results from our analytical formulas with the exact results for zero- and finite-range potential and relativistic mean-field theoretical models. In all cases, inclusion of next-to-leading order temperature effects substantially extends the ranges of partial degeneracy for which the analytical treatment remains valid.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figure

Improved Perturbation Theory for Improved Lattice Actions

We study a systematic improvement of perturbation theory for gauge fields on the lattice; the improvement entails resumming, to all orders in the coupling constant, a dominant subclass of tadpole diagrams. This method, originally proposed for the Wilson gluon action, is extended here to encompass all possible gluon actions made of closed Wilson loops; any fermion action can be employed as well. The effect of resummation is to replace various parameters in the action (coupling constant, Symanzik coefficients, clover coefficient) by ``dressed'' values; the latter are solutions to certain coupled integral equations, which are easy to solve numerically. Some positive features of this method are: a) It is gauge invariant, b) it can be systematically applied to improve (to all orders) results obtained at any given order in perturbation theory, c) it does indeed absorb in the dressed parameters the bulk of tadpole contributions. Two different applications are presented: The additive renormalization of fermion masses, and the multiplicative renormalization Z_V (Z_A) of the vector (axial) current. In many cases where non-perturbative estimates of renormalization functions are also available for comparison, the agreement with improved perturbative results is significantly better as compared to results from bare perturbation theory.Comment: 17 pages, 3 tables, 6 figure