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Equilibrium Partition Function of Non-Relativistic CFTs in Harmonic Trap

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-03-11 v1 Quantum Gases

Abstract

We investigate the equilibrium partition function of non-relativistic conformal field theories in harmonic quantization. We first analyze the hydrodynamic regime and show that, at leading order, the partition function exhibits a universal structure determined by the equation of state: the logarithm of the partition function develops simple poles in ω2Ωa2\omega^2-\Omega_a^2, where ω\omega is the harmonic trapping frequency and Ωa\Omega_a are angular velocities acting as chemical potentials for angular momentum. The corresponding residue is determined by a single-variable function of μ/T\mu/T, with μ\mu the particle-number chemical potential and TT the temperature. We then study the large-angular-momentum limit Ωaω\Omega_a\to\omega. In this regime centrifugal effects nearly cancel the trapping potential, and the logarithm of the partition function again exhibits simple poles in ω2Ωa2\omega^2-\Omega_a^2, but with a less universal residue depending separately on μ/T\mu/T and ω/T\omega/T. As explicit examples we analyze superfluid systems realizable in cold-atom experiments, in particular fermions at unitarity confined in a harmonic trap.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.09856,
  title  = {Equilibrium Partition Function of Non-Relativistic CFTs in Harmonic Trap},
  author = {Eunwoo Lee},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.09856},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

34 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:13:19.072Z