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arXiv:2512.12100 · American Journal of Physics

On the Bogoliubov-Valatin transformation for fermionic Hamiltonians without a linear part

Davide Bonaretti

cond-mat.otherquant-phSubmitted Dec 13, 2025• Announced Dec 16, 2025• 0 citations• Revised Mar 30, 2026 (v2)

v1 · Dec 13, 2025 v2 · Mar 30, 2026

Abstract

A self-contained treatment of the Bogoliubov-Valatin transformation for homogeneous fermionic Hamiltonians is presented. The aim is to provide a quick reference that may also serve as supplementary material for a graduate-level course, and that can be understood with quantum mechanics knowledge up to the level of the second quantization's rules. The objective of the transformation is to cast a quadratic Hamiltonian into a diagonal form that resembles the Hamiltonian of a system of non-interacting particles. To obtain this, the first step consists in putting its coefficient matrix into its canonical form; the transformation can always be performed on fermionic Hamiltonians, only some care must be taken when this form is singular. Having explained how to cast a general matrix into its standard form, a complete description of the transformation is provided; a novel procedure is proposed here for the singular matrix case.

Journal reference: Am. J. Phys. 94, 239-244 (2026)
DOI: 10.1119/5.0291967
Comments: Accepted version of the paper; 6 pages

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A self-contained treatment of the Bogoliubov-Valatin transformation for homogeneous fermionic Hamiltonians is presented. The aim is to provide a quick reference that may also serve as supplementary material for a graduate-level course, and that can be understood with quantum mechanics knowledge up to the level of the second quantization's rules. The objective of the transformation is to cast a quadratic Hamiltonian into a diagonal form that resembles the Hamiltonian of a system of non-interacting particles. To obtain this, the first step consists in putting its coefficient matrix into its canonical form; the transformation can always be performed on fermionic Hamiltonians, only some care must be taken when this form is singular. Having explained how to cast a general matrix into its standard form, a complete description of the transformation is provided; a novel procedure is proposed here for the singular matrix case.

A system of linearly coupled quantum harmonic oscillators can be diagonalized when the system is dynamically stable using a Bogoliubov canonical transformation. However, this is just a particular case of more general canonical transformations that can be performed even when the system is dynamically unstable. Specific canonical transformations can transform a quadratic Hamiltonian into a normal form, which greatly helps to elucidate the underlying physics of the system. Here, we provide a self-contained review of the normal form of a quadratic Hamiltonian as well as step-by-step instructions to construct the corresponding canonical transformation for the most general case. Among other examples, we show how the standard two-mode Hamiltonian with a quadratic position coupling presents, in the stability diagram, all the possible normal forms corresponding to different types of dynamical instabilities.

In introducing second quantization for fermions, Jordan and Wigner (1927/1928) observed that the algebra of a single pair of fermion creation and annihilation operators in quantum mechanics is closely related to the algebra of quaternions H. For the first time, here we exploit this fact to study nonlinear Bogolyubov-Valatin transformations (canonical transformations for fermions) for a single fermionic mode. By means of these transformations, a class of fermionic Hamiltonians in an external field is related to the standard Fermi oscillator.

In introducing second quantization for fermions, Jordan and Wigner (1927, 1928) observed that the algebra of a single pair of fermion creation and annihilation operators in quantum mechanics is closely related to the algebra of quaternions H . For the first time, here we exploit this fact to study nonlinear Bogolyubov–Valatin transformations (canonical transformations for fermions) for a single fermionic mode. By means of these transformations, a class of fermionic Hamiltonians in an external field is related to the standard Fermi oscillator.

A theory of transformation is presented for the diagonalization of a Hamiltonian that is quadratic in creation and annihilation operators or in coordinates and momenta. It is the systemization and theorization of Dirac and Bogoliubov-Valatin transformations, and thus provides us an operational procedure to answer, in a direct manner, the questions as to whether a quadratic Hamiltonian is diagonalizable, whether the diagonalization is unique, and how the transformation can be constructed if the diagonalization exists. The underlying idea is to consider the dynamic matrix. Each quadratic Hamiltonian has a dynamic matrix of its own. The eigenvalue problem of the dynamic matrix determines the diagonalizability of the quadratic Hamiltonian completely. In brief, the theory ascribes the diagonalization of a quadratic Hamiltonian to the eigenvalue problem of its dynamic matrix, which is familiar to all of us. That makes it much easy to use. Applications to various physical systems are discussed, with especial emphasis on the quantum fields, such as Klein-Gordon field, phonon field, etc..

This thesis is concerned with the properties of dynamical systems with Hamiltonians which are general quadratic combinations of classical or quantum canonical variables or of Boson or Fermion annihilation and creation operators.Chapter I, consisting of six sections, deals mainly with sets of canonical forms for quadratic Hamiltonians under the action of the group of linear canonical transformations.By viewing the group of C.C.R.Bogoliubov transformations as Sp(2tf, i?) , a full set of canonical Boson Hamiltonians, labelled by the invariants for symplectic conjugacy classes, is obtained.Since the conjugacy class of a real orthogonal matrix is determined by its eigenvalues, there is only one type of canonical form for quadratic Fermion Hamiltonians.Unlike the Fermion case, indefinite Boson Hamiltonians can not in general be reduced to a sum of quasi-particle number operators.However, it is shown how spectral theory in Krein space rigorizes the full reduction of a strictly positive quadratic Boson Hamiltonian for which the single particle space is infinite dimensional.In the case of infinite degrees of freedom, there are various existence criteria for a unitary operator which implements a given Bogoliubov transformation and the equivalence of these is discussed in Section 6.Cahpter II, consisting of seven sections, applies the techniques of Chapter I to algebraic quantization.The Boson commutation relations , among formal mode operators obtained in heuristic quantization, are shown to be incompatible with the canonical commutation relations among conjugate variables unless the motion is stable.Segal quantization of any real