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arXiv:1708.00986 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Topological interpretation of the Luttinger theorem

Kazuhiro Seki, Seiji Yunoki

Published Aug 18, 2017• 45 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Based solely on the analytical properties of the single-particle Green's function of fermions at finite temperatures, we show that the generalized Luttinger theorem inherently possesses topological aspects. The topological interpretation of the generalized Luttinger theorem can be introduced because (i) the Luttinger volume is represented as the winding number of the single-particle Green's function and, thus, (ii) the deviation of the theorem, expressed with a ratio between the interacting and noninteracting single-particle Green's functions, is also represented as the winding number of this ratio. The formulation based on the winding number naturally leads to two types of the generalized Luttinger theorem. Exploring two examples of single-band translationally invariant interacting electrons, i.e., simple metal and Mott insulator, we show that the first type falls into the original statement for Fermi liquids given by Luttinger, where poles of the single-particle Green's function appear at the chemical potential, while the second type corresponds to the extended one for nonmetallic cases with no Fermi surface such as insulators and superconductors generalized by Dzyaloshinskii, where zeros of the single-particle Green's function appear at the chemical potential. This formulation also allows us to derive a sufficient condition for the validity of the Luttinger theorem of the first type by applying the Rouche's theorem in complex analysis as an inequality. Moreover, we can rigorously prove in a nonperturbative manner, without assuming any detail of a microscopic Hamiltonian, that the generalized Luttinger theorem of both types is valid for generic interacting fermions as long as the particle-hole symmetry is preserved. Finally, we show that the winding number of the single-particle Green's function can also be associated with the distribution function of quasiparticles, and therefore the number of quasiparticles is equal to the Luttinger volume. This implies that the fundamental hypothesis of the Landau's Fermi-liquid theory, the number of fermions being equal to that of quasiparticles, is guaranteed if the Luttinger theorem is valid since the theorem states that the number of fermions is equal to the Luttinger volume. All these general statements are made possible because of the finding that the Luttinger volume is expressed as the winding number of the single-particle Green's function at finite temperatures, for which the complex analysis can be readily exploited.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.96.085124

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Based solely on the analytical properties of the single-particle Green's function of fermions at finite temperatures, we show that the generalized Luttinger theorem inherently possesses topological aspects. The topological interpretation of the generalized Luttinger theorem can be introduced because (i) the Luttinger volume is represented as the winding number of the single-particle Green's function and, thus, (ii) the deviation of the theorem, expressed with a ratio between the interacting and noninteracting single-particle Green's functions, is also represented as the winding number of this ratio. The formulation based on the winding number naturally leads to two types of the generalized Luttinger theorem. Exploring two examples of single-band translationally invariant interacting electrons, i.e., simple metal and Mott insulator, we show that the first type falls into the original statement for Fermi liquids given by Luttinger, where poles of the single-particle Green's function appear at the chemical potential, while the second type corresponds to the extended one for nonmetallic cases with no Fermi surface such as insulators and superconductors generalized by Dzyaloshinskii, where zeros of the single-particle Green's function appear at the chemical potential. This formulation also allows us to derive a sufficient condition for the validity of the Luttinger theorem of the first type by applying the Rouche's theorem in complex analysis as an inequality. Moreover, we can rigorously prove in a nonperturbative manner, without assuming any detail of a microscopic Hamiltonian, that the generalized Luttinger theorem of both types is valid for generic interacting fermions as long as the particle-hole symmetry is preserved. Finally, we show that the winding number of the single-particle Green's function can also be associated with the distribution function of quasiparticles, and therefore the number of quasiparticles is equal to the Luttinger volume. This implies that the fundamental hypothesis of the Landau's Fermi-liquid theory, the number of fermions being equal to that of quasiparticles, is guaranteed if the Luttinger theorem is valid since the theorem states that the number of fermions is equal to the Luttinger volume. All these general statements are made possible because of the finding that the Luttinger volume is expressed as the winding number of the single-particle Green's function at finite temperatures, for which the complex analysis can be readily exploited.
Abstract Luttinger’s theorem is a major result in many-body physics that states the volume of the Fermi surface is directly proportional to the particle density. In its ‘hard’ form, Luttinger’s theorem implies that the Fermi volume is invariant with respect to interactions (as opposed to a ‘soft’ Luttinger’s theorem, where this invariance is lost). Despite it is simplicity, the conditions on the fermionic self energy under which Luttinger’s theorem is valid remains a matter of debate, with possible requirements for its validity ranging from particle-hole symmetry to analyticity about the Fermi surface. In this paper, we propose the minimal requirements for the application of a hard Luttinger’s theorem to a generic fermionic system of arbitrary interaction strength by invoking the Atiyah–Singer index theorem to quantify the topologically-robust behavior of a generalized Fermi surface. We show that the applicability of a hard Luttinger’s theorem in a D-dimensional system is directly dependent on the existence of a (D − 1)-dimensional manifold of gapless chiral excitations at the Fermi level, regardless of whether the system exhibits Luttinger or Fermi surfaces (i.e., manifolds of zeroes of the Green’s function and inverse Green’s function, respectively). The exact form of the self-energy which guarantees validity of a hard Luttinger’s theorem is derived, and agreement with current experiments, numerics, and theories are discussed.
Luttinger's theorem constrains the particle density of interacting fermions through global properties of the single-particle Green's function, and its violation signals a breakdown of the identification between the quantized Hall response and the Green-function-based Ishikawa-Matsuyama invariant. This phenomenon becomes especially compelling in strongly correlated topological phases, such as fractional Chern insulators, where fractionalized quasiparticles lack an adiabatic connection to electrons, raising the question of how Green's-function-based topological invariants manifest in such phases. Using exact diagonalization of the fermionic Harper-Hofstadter-Hubbard model, we compute bulk single-particle Green's functions deep inside a fractional Chern insulating phase and directly evaluate the Luttinger count, its possible correction (the Luttinger integral), and the Ishikawa-Matsuyama invariant N3[G]N_3[\mathrm{G}]N3​[G]. We demonstrate a clear violation of Luttinger's theorem and show that the fractional nature of the many-body Chern number is encoded in the Středa response of the Luttinger integral, while the integer invariant N3[G]N_3[\mathrm{G}]N3​[G] arises from the Středa response of the Luttinger count. We also analytically prove that N3[G]N_3[\mathrm{G}]N3​[G] is fully determined by the Luttinger count together with the Chern number of the occupied Bloch band, upon neglecting Bloch-band mixing. Finally, we propose an experimental protocol to extract all Green-function-based topological invariants from local density-of-states measurements, experimentally accessible in fractional quantum Hall systems.
Breakdown of Landau's hypothesis of adiabatic continuation from noninteracting to fully interacting electrons is commonly believed to bring about a violation of Luttinger's theorem. Here, we elucidate what may go wrong in the proof of Luttinger's theorem. The analysis provides a simple way to correct Luttinger's expression of the electron number in single-band models where perturbation theory breaks down through the birth of a Luttinger surface without symmetry breaking. In those cases, we find that the Fermi volume only accounts for the doping away from half-filling. In the hypothetical circumstance of a non-symmetry-breaking Mott insulator with a Luttinger surface, our analysis predicts the noteworthy existence of quasiparticles whose Fermi surface is just the Luttinger one. Therefore, those quasiparticles can be legitimately regarded as spinons, and the Mott insulator with a Luttinger surface as realization of a spin-liquid insulator.
In the fermionic liquids, the Fermi surface is topologically stable,\cite{Volovik2003} which is at the origin of the applicability of the Landau theory of Fermi liquid (LFL). The LFL exists under special condition, when the Green's function has a pole with nonzero residue ZZZ. Otherwise one has non-Landau Fermi liquid (NLFL), such as Luttinger liquid, which is described by the same topological invariant. It appears that in general this topological invariant is the property of the fermionic particle, i.e. the particle charge (or the electric charge of electron) is equivalent to the topological charge of the fermion. The conservation of the fermionic charge is equivalent to the conservation of the topological charge. We consider the application of this topological charge to the Landau theory of Fermi liquids. We also consider the application to non-Fermi liquids and crystalline insulators in relation to the Luttinger theorem.
We investigate the validity of Luttinger’s theorem (or Luttinger sum rule) in two scale-invariant fermionic models. We find that, in general, Luttinger’s theorem does not hold in a system of fermions with power-law Green functions which do not necessarily preserve particle-hole symmetry. However, Ref. [1,2] showed that Luttinger liquids, another scale-invariant fermionic model, respect Luttinger’s theorem. To understand the difference, we examine the spinless Luttinger liquid model. We find two properties which make the Luttinger sum rule valid in this model: particle-hole symmetry and lmG(\omega=0,-\infty)=0 l m G ( ω = 0 , − ∞ ) = 0 . We conjecture that these two properties represent sufficient, but not necessary, conditions for the validity of the Luttinger sum rule in condensed matter systems.
For pure fermionic systems, and in the absence of symmetry breaking (e.g. magnetism, superconductivity, …), two types of metallic phases are well established: (i) the “normal” Fermi liquid phase in d = 3 presented in Chapters 12 and 19 via the response and the Green functions techniques; and (ii) the “anomalous” Luttinger liquid phase in d = 1 originally formulated with the bosonization technique by which the fermionic operators are represented in terms of “bosonic” density operators (Luther and Peschel (1974); Haldane (1981)) with the exact solution (Mattis and Lieb (1965)) of the Tomonaga–Luttinger model (Tomonaga (1950); Luttinger (1963)) discussed inmany reviews and books (see for instance the book by Giamarchi (2004)). Here, to stress similarities and differences between the Fermi liquid and the Luttinger liquid, we will follow the alternative route of response and Green functions techniques (Dzyaloshinskii and Larkin (1973), Di Castro and Metzner (1991), Metzner et al. (1998)) and add a few comments on the renormalization group approach (Metzner and Di Castro (1993)). As we have seen in Chapters 12 and 19, the Fermi liquid is described asymptotically by the free low-lying single-particle excitations, i.e., the quasiparticles with a zero-kelvin discontinuous occupation number in momentum space n k (see Eq. (18.54)) at a well defined Fermi surface (k = k F ): where here k F> and k F< indicate the limit k → k F from above and below. This discontinuity still marks the Fermi surface in the interacting system. The finite reduction of the single-particle spectral weight z kF with respect to the Fermi gas (z kF = 1) is given by the finite (i.e. non-critical) “wavefunction renormalization” (see Eq. (18.94)). The presence of the discontinuity at the Fermi surface, together with the Pauli principle, compel the inverse quasiparticle lifetime to be τ −1 ≈ max( T 2 , ϵ 2 ), where _ is the deviation of the energy of the quasiparticle from the Fermi energy. The energy uncertainty ħτ −1 due to the finite lifetime of a quasiparticle near the Fermi surface is small compared to its energy ϵ , and the quasiparticle concept is well defined. All the momentum transferring scattering processes become asymptotically ineffective, as derived phenomenologically in Chapter 12 and confirmed microscopically in Chapter 19.