Anomalous specific heat in high-density QED and QCD

Abstract

Long-range quasistatic gauge-boson interactions lead to anomalous (non-Fermi-liquid) behavior of the specific heat in the low-temperature limit of an electron or quark gas with a leading $T\mathrm{ln}{T}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ term. We obtain perturbative results beyond the leading log approximation and find that dynamical screening gives rise to a low-temperature series involving also anomalous fractional powers ${T}^{(3+2n)/3}.$ We determine their coefficients in perturbation theory up to and including order ${T}^{7/3}$ and compare with exact numerical results obtained in the large-${N}_{f}$ limit of QED and QCD.