Bose-Einstein condensation in dense quark matter Original Research Article

We consider the problem of Bose condensation of charged pions in QCD at finite isospin chemical potential μI using the O(4)-symmetric linear sigma model as an effective field theory for two-flavor QCD. Using the 2PI 1/N-expansion, we determine the quasiparticle masses as well as the pion and chiral condensates as a function of the temperature and isospin chemical potential in the chiral limit and at the physical point. The calculations show that there is a competition between the condensates. At T=0, Bose condensation takes place for chemical potentials larger than μπ. In the chiral limit, the chiral condensate vanishes for any finite value of μI.