Effective Lagrangian and quantum screening in charged condensate

Gregory Gabadadze, Rachel A. Rosen

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    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.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Article number016
    JournalJournal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
    Volume2009
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2009

    Keywords

    • Cosmological phase transitions
    • Physics of the early universe

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Astronomy and Astrophysics

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Effective Lagrangian and quantum screening in charged condensate'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this