Bose-Einstein condensation in relativistic plasma

Abstract

The phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation is traditionally associated with and experimentally verified at low temperatures: either of the nano-Kelvin scale for alkali atoms, or room temperatures for quasi-particles or photons in two dimensions. Here we demonstrate out of first principles that for certain initial conditions nonequilibrium plasma at relativistic temperatures of billions of Kelvin undergoes condensation, as predicted by Zeldovich and Levich in their seminal work. We determine the necessary conditions for the onset of condensation and discuss the possibilities to observe such a phenomenon in laboratory and astrophysical conditions.