Variational Perturbation Theory for the Ground-State Wave Function

We evaluate perturbatively the density matrix in the low-temperature limit and thus the ground-state wave function of the anharmonic oscillator up to second order in the coupling constant. We then employ Kleinert's variational perturbation theory to determine the ground-state wave function for all coupling strengths.Comment: The article is a contribution to the book "Fluctuating Paths and Fields - Dedicated to Hagen Kleinert on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday", Eds. Wolfhard Janke, Axel Pelster, Hans-Juergen Schmidt, and Michael Bachmann (World Scientific, Singapore, 2001), p. 315-32

The Highest-Derivative Version of Variational Perturbation Theory

We systematically investigate different versions of variational perturbation theory by forcing not only the first or second but also higher derivatives of the approximant with respect to the variational parameter to vanish. The choice of the highest derivative version turns out to be the most successful one for approximating the ground-state energy of the anharmonic oscillator. It is therefore used to determine the critical exponent alpha of the specific heat in superfluid 4He in agreement with the value measured in recent space shuttle experiments.Comment: The article is a contribution to the book "Fluctuating Paths and Fields - Dedicated to Hagen Kleinert on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday", Eds. Wolfhard Janke, Axel Pelster, Hans-Juergen Schmidt, and Michael Bachmann (World Scientific, Singapore, 2001), p. 347-36

A theory of finite-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates in neutron stars

We investigate the possible occurrence of a Bose-Einstein condensed phase of matter within neutron stars due to the formation of Cooper pairs among the superfluid neutrons. To this end we study the condensation of bosonic particles under the influence of both a short-range contact and a long-range gravitational interaction in the framework of a Hartree-Fock theory. We consider a finite-temperature scenario, generalizing existing approaches, and derive macroscopic and astrophysically relevant quantities like a mass limit for neutron stars.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures; replaced after publication with additional comment