Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 75 4 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The density-phase action of a Bose gas follows directly from :The total derivative integrates to zero for periodic density. HenceA uniform density fluctuation has nonzero quadratic cost , whereas a uniform phase change has no energy cost. Thus the radial fluctuation is massive in the static quadratic-action sense, while the phase is massless. The number-phase conjugacy term couples their dynamics: this does not imply an additional independent gapped quasiparticle branch in the nonrelativistic Bose gas.
The compact phase winding term vanishes for the smooth zero-winding phonon sector. Globally the phase can wind by while the complex field remains periodic, so that term should not be discarded across all topological sectors without a further argument.