  In the framework of the O(N) three-dimensional effective scalar field model
for homogeneous dilute weakly interacting Bose gases we use the 1/N expansion
to evaluate, within the large N limit, the parameter r_c which is directly
related to the critical chemical potential mu_c. This quantity enters the
order-a^2 n^{2/3} coefficient contributing to the critical temperature shift
Delta T_c where a represents the s-wave scattering length and n represents the
density. Compared to the recent precise numerical lattice simulation results,
our calculation suggests that the large N approximation performs rather well
even for the physical case N=2. We then calculate the same quantity but using
different forms of the optimized perturbative (variational) method, showing
that these produce excellent results both for the finite N and large-N cases.
