Quantum statistical mechanics of gases in terms of dynamical filling fractions and scattering amplitudes

We develop a finite temperature field theory formalism in any dimension that has the filling fractions as the basic dynamical variables. The formalism efficiently decouples zero temperature dynamics from the quantum statistical sums. The zero temperature `data' is the scattering amplitudes. A saddle point condition leads to an integral equation which is similar in spirit to the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz for integrable models, and effectively resums infinite classes of diagrams. We present both relativistic and non-relativistic versions.