Effective Action Approach to Bose-Einstein Condensation of Ideal Gases

We present a short review of how the effective action formalism, well known in relativistic quantum field theory, can be used to discuss Bose-Einstein condensation of non-relativistic gases. This method lends itself very naturally to an interpretation of Bose-Einstein condensation in terms of symmetry breaking. It also allows for the definition of a very elegant regularization technique involving generalized ζ-functions. We show how this method can be used to recover the well known results for the free boson gas, as well as the charged boson gas in a constant magnetic field. A general criterion for interpreting Bose-Einstein condensation in terms of a phase transition with symmetry breaking is given. Finally we present an analysis of Bose-Einstein condensation in a harmonic oscillator confining potential trap, and show how the results of this simple model are in excellent agreement with experiment.