RELATIVISTIC SOMMERFELD LOW TEMPERATURE EXPANSION

Abstract

We derive a relativistic Sommerfeld expansion for thermodynamic quantities in many-body fermionic systems. The expansion is used to generate the equation of state of the Walecka model and its isotherms. We find that these results are in good agreement with numerical calculations, even when the expansion is truncated at its lowest order, in the low temperature regime, defined by T/xf ≪ 1. Although the interesting region near the liquid-gas phase transition is excluded by this criterion, the expansion may still find usefulness in the study of very cold nuclear matter systems, such as neutron stars.