Bose quantum fluids at finite temperatures: A variational density-matrix approach

The variational density-matrix approach introduced by Campbell, Kuerten, Ristig, and Senger [Phys. Rev. B 30, 3728 (1984)], to study finite-temperature Bose fluids is reformulated to avoid dealing directly with the entropy of the trial density matrix. We obtain exact expressions for the Euler-Lagrange equations for a finite-temperature trial statistical density matrix, which is the simplest finite-temperature generalization of a Jastrow trial ground-state wave function. A multicomponent hypernetted-chain method is developed to solve approximately these Euler-Lagrange equations at low temperatures. In leading order the results are shown to be equivalent to those obtained by Campbell et al. The current formalism provides a scheme to improve results of the previous approach