A dense interacting Bose or Fermi gas is considered. Within the Kadanoff-Baym real-time Green-function technique a generalized kinetic equation is derived in the nonequilibrium ladder approximation. As a Markovian limit the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck equation is recovered. The relevance of retardation effects in the kinetic equation of dense systems is shown. It turns out that the stationary solution of the generalized kinetic equation reproduces the second virial coefficient of the equation of state, including the Beth-Uhlenbeck quantum corrections. We establish a generalized kinetic equation describing correlation effects in a consistent approach to nonequilibrium for Bose and Fermi systems. In this way we give a generalization of the Beth-Uhlenbeck formula that applies to nonequilibrium and to finite systems. The derivation makes use of the time dependent T-matrix equation, which establishes a generalization of the Bethe-Goldstone equation. The correlated parts of the density and energy, which can be interpreted as virial corrections, are thermodynamically consistent. In this way global energy conservation is fulfilled.

• Received 25 July 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.51.4246