The thermodynamic properties of the noninteracting Bose gas in the neighborhood of its transition are examined in detail. The order parameter is a complex extensive variable, but the thermodynamic properties depend only on its amplitude under simple boundary conditions. As the dimensionality or the single-particle energy spectrum is varied, the critical singularity displays a variety of forms. The equation of state has a simple structure, different from the homogeneous form often discussed for critical systems but asymptotically reducing to the latter except when logarithmic singularities are involved. The correlation function in the critical region is a homogeneous function of the distance and a correlation length. Only for a quadratic energy spectrum is the Ornstein-Zernike theory result valid at the critical temperature. A precise correspondence is noted between the asymptotic properties of the ideal Bose gas transition and those of the spherical model of ferromagnetism.
An argument is presented for a certain asymptotic form for the correlation functions of two local dynamical variables when the system is near its critical point and in the one phase region. If
A(r) and
B(r) are local dynamical variables and $\ensuremath{\omega}$ stands for the variables specifying the thermodynamic state, it is found that for $\ensuremath{\omega}$ near the critical point ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{c}$ and for
r large enough, $〈A(\mathbf{r})B(0)〉\ensuremath{-}〈A(\mathbf{r})〉〈B(0)〉\ensuremath{\simeq}\frac{{d}_{A}(\ensuremath{\omega}){d}_{B}(\ensuremath{\omega}){e}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\kappa}(\ensuremath{\omega})}}{{r}^{b(\ensuremath{\omega})}}$, where $\ensuremath{\kappa}(\ensuremath{\omega})$ and $b(\ensuremath{\omega})$ are the same for a large class of
A and
B and $\ensuremath{\kappa}(\ensuremath{\omega})\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$, $b(\ensuremath{\omega})\ensuremath{\rightarrow}b\ensuremath{\ge}0 \mathrm{as} \ensuremath{\omega}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{c}$. For the Ising model of any dimension in zero field and below the critical temperature, the additional assumption of a single correlation length implies the relationship ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}^{\ensuremath{'}}+2\ensuremath{\beta}=2\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, which is often conjectured for the critical exponents.
We propose a form factor approach for the computation of the large distance asymptotic behavior of correlation functions in quantum critical (integrable) models. In the large distance regime we reduce the summation over all excited states to one over the particle/hole excitations lying on the Fermi surface in the thermodynamic limit. We compute these sums, over the so-called critical form factors, exactly. Thus we obtain the leading large distance behavior of each oscillating harmonic of the correlation function asymptotic expansion, including the corresponding amplitudes. Our method is applicable to a wide variety of integrable models and yields precisely the results stemming from the Luttinger liquid approach, the conformal field theory predictions and our previous analysis of the correlation functions from their multiple-integral representations. We argue that our scheme applies to a general class of non-integrable quantum critical models as well.