We determine the critical temperature of a 3-d homogeneous system of hard-sphere Bosons by path-integral Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling. At low densities, we find that the critical temperature is increased by the repulsive interactions, in the form of a power law in density with exponent 1/3: ∆TC /T0 ∼ (na 3 ) 1/3 . At high densities the result for liquid helium, namely a lower critical temperature than in the non-interacting case, is recovered. We give a microscopic explanation for the observed behavior.

We study the occurrence of a Bose-Einstein transition in a dilute gas with repulsive interactions, starting from temperatures above the transition temperature. The formalism, based on the use of Ursell operators, allows us to evaluate the one-particle density operator with more flexibility than in mean-field theories, since it does not necessarily coincide with that of an ideal gas with adjustable parameters (chemical potential, etc.). In a first step, a simple approximation is used (Ursell-Dyson approximation), which allow us to recover results which are similar to those of the usual mean-field theories. In a second step, a more precise treatment of the correlations and velocity dependence of the populations in the system is elaborated. This introduces new physical effects, such as a marked change of the velocity profile just above the transition: low velocities are more populated than in an ideal gas. A consequence of this distortion is an increase of the critical temperature (at constant density) of the Bose gas, in agreement with those of recent path integral Monte-Carlo calculations for hard spheres.

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We apply the formalism of Ursell operators, introduced in a previous article, to the calculation of reduced density operators (one and two-body density operators) in a dilute quantum gas; the calculation is not a fugacity expansion and is therefore not limited to low degrees of degeneracy. We obtain quantum corrections for the one-particle density operator as a function of the second Ursell operator. For the two-body density operator, we examine how statistics and interactions combine their effects on the correlations between particles; in particular we discuss in detail how hard cores potentials affect the short range correlations, a non-perturbative effect

We study in more details the properties of the generalized Beth Uhlenbeck formula obtained in a preceding article. This formula leads to a simple integral expression of the grand potential of any dilute system, where the interaction potential appears only through the matrix elements of the second order Ursell operator U2. Our results remain valid for significant degree of degeneracy of the gas, but not when Bose Einstein (or BCS) condensation is reached, or even too close to this transition point. We apply them to the study of the thermodynamic properties of degenerate quantum gases: equation of state, magnetic susceptibility, effects of exchange between bound states and free particles, etc. We compare our predictions to those obtained within other approaches, especially the “pseudo potential” approximation, where the real potential is replaced by a potential with zero range (Dirac delta function). This comparison is conveniently made in terms of a temperature dependent quantity, the “Ursell length”, which we define in the text. This length plays a role which is analogous to the scattering length for pseudopotentials, but it is temperature dependent and may include more physical effects than just binary collision effects; for instance, for fermions at very low temperatures, it may change sign or increase almost exponentially. As an illustration, numerical results for quantum hard spheres are given