Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 337 1 e Solution 2026-09-28
Subtract the zero-temperature term by using . In three dimensions the thermal part iswhere the last integral uses the Bose-Einstein distribution. Gaussian phase fluctuations reduce the order parameter by . Taking symmetry restoration to occur when the thermal variance is of order one givesThe effective action in part c has , and hence . This is an order-of-magnitude estimate because near restoration the phase-only effective field theory omits large amplitude fluctuations and sensitivity to its ultraviolet cutoff.