It is shown how the effective action formalism and ζ-function regularization can be used to study Bose-Einstein condensation for a relativistic charged scalar field in a general homogeneous magnetic field in a spacetime of arbitrary dimension. In the special case where the magnetic field has only one component, Bose-Einstein condensation occurs at high temperature only for D≥5 where D is the spatial dimension. When Bose-Einstein condensation does occur the ground-state expectation value of the scalar field is not constant and we determine its value. If the magnetic field has p independent nonzero components we show that the condition for Bose-Einstein condensation is D≥3+2p. In particular, Bose-Einstein condensation can never occur if the magnetic field has all of its independent components nonzero. The problem of Bose-Einstein condensation in a cylindrical box in D spatial dimensions with a uniform magnetic field directed along the axis of the cylinder is also discussed.

• Received 23 May 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.50.6457