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arXiv:1011.4943 · Physical Review B

Nonequilibrium time evolution of bosons from the functional renormalization group

Thomas Kloss, Peter Kopietz

Published May 19, 2011• 18 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We develop a functional renormalization group approach to obtain the time evolution of the momentum distribution function of interacting bosons out of equilibrium. Using an external out-scattering rate as flow parameter, we derive formally exact renormalization group flow equations for the nonequilibrium self-energies in the Keldysh basis. A simple perturbative truncation of these flow equations leads to an approximate solution of the quantum Boltzmann equation, which does not suffer from secular terms and gives accurate results even for long times. We demonstrate this explicitly within a simple exactly solvable toy model describing a quartic oscillator with off-diagonal pairing terms.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.83.205118

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We develop a functional renormalization group approach to obtain the time evolution of the momentum distribution function of interacting bosons out of equilibrium. Using an external out-scattering rate as flow parameter, we derive formally exact renormalization group flow equations for the nonequilibrium self-energies in the Keldysh basis. A simple perturbative truncation of these flow equations leads to an approximate solution of the quantum Boltzmann equation, which does not suffer from secular terms and gives accurate results even for long times. We demonstrate this explicitly within a simple exactly solvable toy model describing a quartic oscillator with off-diagonal pairing terms.
We apply the recently developed real-time renormalization-group (RTRG) method to different quantum dissipative systems. In contrast to other renormalization-group techniques the RTRG approach is formulated on the Keldysh contour and therefore allows for the description of nonequilibrium situations. The method is based on an exact kinetic equation which determines the time-dependent reduced density matrix. The kinetic equation involves an integral kernel which describes the phenomenon of dissipation. We calculate this quantity using the RTRG method: After applying Wick's theorem the arising diagrams are accounted for successively with respect to their time scale. During that process the theory is left invariant by renormalizing the operators describing the theory. As a starting point we discuss the polaron problem. We calculate the renormalized ground-state energy and the effective mass. We compare our results of the RTRG with those obtained from the flow equation formalism, which is based on infinitesimal transformations. In the central part of this thesis we consider the spin-boson model which is applicable to various physical and chemical systems. It models a particle in a double-well potential which is coupled to a bosonic environment. We determine static properties such as the static susceptibility. We also present results for the time evolution of the reduced density matrix starting from an arbitrary nonequilibrium state. The asymptotic behaviour of the reduced density matrix can be characterized by an oscillation frequency and two decay constants, all of which are determined. Finally, we calculate equilibrium correlation functions. We find consistency of our results with quantum Monte Carlo simulations and with the Shiba-relation. Additionally, our results show the correct scaling behaviour. Comparisons are also drawn to results of the noninteracting blip approximation and to results obtained for the anisotropic Kondo model. Our approach is very accurate for not too large couplings to the environment. Furthermore, the stationary tunnel current through a double quantum dot coupled to a phonon bath is calculated and compared to experimental data. Eventually, the running couplings of the two-lead Kondo model are discussed.
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We discuss the far-from-equilibrium evolution of ${\ensuremath{\phi}}^{3}$ theory in 1+11+11+1 dimensions with the temporal functional renormalization group. In particular, we show that this manifestly causal approach leads to novel one-loop exact equations for fully dressed correlation functions. Within this setup, we numerically compute the dynamical propagator. Its behavior suggests self-similarity far from equilibrium in a restricted momentum regime. We discuss the scaling exponents for our solution, as well as the numerical satisfaction of energy and particle number conservation. We also derive a simple exact representation of the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor solely in terms of the propagator.
We investigate the single-particle spectral density of interacting bosons within the nonperturbative functional renormalization group technique. The flow equations for a Bose gas are derived in a scheme which treats the two-particle density-density correlations exactly but neglects irreducible correlations among three and more particles. These flow equations are solved within a truncation which allows to extract the complete frequency and momentum structure of the normal and anomalous self-energies. Both the asymptotic small momentum regime, where the perturbation regime fails, as well as the perturbative regime at larger momenta are well described within a single unified approach. The self-energies do not exhibit any infrared divergences, satisfy the U(1) symmetry constraints, and are in accordance with the Nepomnyashchy relation, which states that the anomalous self-energy vanishes at zero momentum and zero frequency. From the self-energies we extract the single-particle spectral density of the two-dimensional Bose gas. The dispersion is found to be of the Bogoliubov form and shows the crossover from linear Goldstone modes to the quadratic behavior of quasifree bosons. The damping of the quasiparticles is found to be in accordance with the standard Beliaev damping. We furthermore recover the exact asymptotic limit of the propagators derived by Gavoret and Nozi\`eres and discuss the nature of the nonanalyticities of the self-energies in the very small momentum regime.
We use a perturbative momentum shell renormalization group (RG) approach to study the properties of a driven quantum system at zero temperature. To illustrate the technique, we consider a bosonic ϕ(4) theory with an arbitrary time dependent interaction parameter λ(t) = λ f(ω0t), where ω0 is the drive frequency and we derive the RG equations for the system using a Keldysh diagrammatic technique. We show that the scaling of ω0 is analogous to that of temperature for a system in thermal equilibrium and its presence provides a cutoff scale for the RG flow. We analyze the resultant RG equations, derive an analytical condition for such a drive to take the system out of the gaussian regime, and show that the onset of the non-gaussian regime occurs concomitantly with the appearance of non-perturbative mode coupling terms in the effective action of the system. We supplement the above-mentioned results by obtaining them from equations of motion of the bosons and discuss their significance for systems near critical points described by time-dependent Landau-Ginzburg theories.
The quantum Boltzmann equation (QBE), originally formulated as the quantum extension of Boltzmann’s classical transport theory by Uehling and Uhlenbeck and subsequently developed within the nonequilibrium Green-function formalisms of Kadanoff–Baym and Keldysh, provides the central kinetic framework for describing relaxation and transport in weakly interacting quantum many-body systems. Although its formal structure is well established, conventional derivations often obscure the microscopic equivalence between operator and nonequilibrium Green-function approaches. Wick factorization is typically applied without explicitly enumerating real-time contractions, while Green-function treatments encode the same physics in Born-level self-energies that conceal their operator origin. In this paper, we present a pedagogical microscopic derivation of the quantum Boltzmann equation that makes this equivalence fully explicit. Starting from the ladder-operator formulation, we enumerate all fifteen Wick pairings of the second-order six-field correlator, identifying three Hartree–Fock contributions and twelve real-time Born scattering channels generated by a quartic, number-conserving interaction Hamiltonian. We then establish a one-to-one correspondence between these twelve operator contractions and the Keldysh components of the second-order Born self-energy, demonstrating explicitly how the Uehling–Uhlenbeck collision integral emerges after Wigner transformation and quasiparticle projection. Under controlled Born–Markov and quasiparticle approximations, this work offers a transparent synthesis of operator and Green-function formulations, and clarifies how kinetic fluctuations can be understood as emergent under coarse-graining.