"A theory is developed to allow the systematic calculation of the properties of quantum fluids given the microscopic two-body potential. Physical arguments are used to construct a correlation operator that approximately transforms the states of a non-interacting system into the corresponding states of the interacting-system. The theory can be regarded as a microscopic realization of Landau's assumption of a one-to-one correspondence between the non-interacting and interacting states. It is variational since the correlation operator is determined by minimizing E(p) the expectation value of the ground-state energy. We first give a survey of various other many-body theories including the simpler Jastrow variational method. Differential equations are derived to calculate the correlation operator and the related Jastrow correlation"" function. A comparison of results in several Bose systems with various methods is given. The Fermi hypernetted chain integral equations are generalized to allow the calculation of E(p) in Fermi systems, using the correlation operator wave function. The method is applied to liquid 3He and the v2-model of nuclear matter. In 3He the correlation operator gives results in much closer agreement with experiment than that with the Jastrow wave function. A new set of hypernetted chain equations are then derived to allow the calculation of the excited st;ate energies in Bose systems. The theory is then applied to the calculation of the single quasi-particle excitation spectrum of liquid 4He. The spectrum is found to be a stringent test on the form of the correlation operator, deficiencies in the correlation operator giving corresponding errors in the spectrum. Good results are obtained for the density dependence of the roton energy. A variational principle for the free energy is used to generalize the correlation operator technique to finite temperatures. Results are given for the finite temperature properties of the v8-model of nuclear matter."
"A theory is developed to allow the systematic calculation of the properties of quantum fluids given the microscopic two-body potential. Physical arguments are used to construct a correlation operator that approximately transforms the states of a non-interacting system into the corresponding states of the interacting-system. The theory can be regarded as a microscopic realization of Landau's assumption of a one-to-one correspondence between the non-interacting and interacting states. It is variational since the correlation operator is determined by minimizing E(p) the expectation value of the ground-state energy. We first give a survey of various other many-body theories including the simpler Jastrow variational method. Differential equations are derived to calculate the correlation operator and the related Jastrow correlation"" function. A comparison of results in several Bose systems with various methods is given. The Fermi hypernetted chain integral equations are generalized to allow the calculation of E(p) in Fermi systems, using the correlation operator wave function. The method is applied to liquid 3He and the v2-model of nuclear matter. In 3He the correlation operator gives results in much closer agreement with experiment than that with the Jastrow wave function. A new set of hypernetted chain equations are then derived to allow the calculation of the excited st;ate energies in Bose systems. The theory is then applied to the calculation of the single quasi-particle excitation spectrum of liquid 4He. The spectrum is found to be a stringent test on the form of the correlation operator, deficiencies in the correlation operator giving corresponding errors in the spectrum. Good results are obtained for the density dependence of the roton energy. A variational principle for the free energy is used to generalize the correlation operator technique to finite temperatures. Results are given for the finite temperature properties of the v8-model of nuclear matter."
The finite-temperature properties of Bose quantum fluids are studied by applying a variational density-matrix approach. Our ansatz for the density matrix is similar to that introduced by Campbell, K\"urten, Ristig, and Senger [Phys. Rev. 30, 3728 (1984)] but has been generalized to include three-body correlations. An expression for the finite-temperature elementary-excitation energy, \ensuremath{\epsilon}(k), is derived from an ansatz for the variational entropy. At zero temperature \ensuremath{\epsilon}(k) reduces to the same expression obtained by Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theory. The hypernetted-chain (HNC) equations provide the relations between the n-particle distribution functions and the correlation functions. A substantial set of elementary diagrams have been included to minimize the loss of precision associated with the HNC approximation. We report values for the static structure function, radial distribution function, excitation energies, particle-hole interaction, Helmholtz free energy, entropy, and isothermal sound velocity. We present a detailed study of the spectra, three-body correlations, and elementary diagram dependence of the thermodynamic spinodal curve. For relevant densities, we find that three-body correlations tend to increase the liquid-gas critical temperature Tc while adding elementary diagrams tends to reduce Tc. Including multiphonon terms in the spectrum produces several features in the variational entropy that were not observed at the Feynman level of excitations. Entropy isotherms show a rather abrupt transition from a low-density regime, where multiphonon contributions are insignificant, to a high-density regime where the isotherms are strongly influenced by multiphonon scattering processes.
The hypotheticai system of nucleons known as nuclear matter provides a very interesting field of study with relevance to both nuclear physics and astrophysics. The task of finding nucleon-nucleon potentials that explain the empirical properties of nuclear matter, as well as the two-body data, has been hampered by the lack of an adequate many-body theory for treating the complicated forces involved. Realistic nucleon-nucleon potentials have strong spin, isospin, tensor and spin-orbit components which induce correspondingly strong correlations in nuclear matter. In this thesis we present a variational theory designed to cope with these complicated correlations. To place the theory in perspective we give an overview of several different many-body theories and compare their predictions in the somewhat simpler systems of the 4He and 3He liquids, and for a simple central potential model of nuclear matter. The variational theory is then developed, starting with the choice of wave function. A generalized Jastrow product of two-body correlation functions containing central, spin, isospin, tensor, and spin-orbit operators is used. The correlation function is generated by a series of two-body Schrodinger equations with boundary conditions which require the wave function to heal at a distance d. The wave function is parameterized by d and by the magnitudes of the non-central correlations. Expectation values with variational wave functions of the Jastrow type may be studied conveniently with generalized Mayer diagrams. Diagram rules are given and a general diagrammatic cluster expansion is derived. It is an expansion in powers of commutators of the non-central operators, and in their absence reduces to the usual Mayer cluster expansion. Evaluation of diagrams in the cluster expansion is complicated by the presence of the non-commuting operators. Some simple rules and useful methods for calculating the contribution due to the central, spin, isospin, and tensor operators are given. Spin-orbit operators are neglected beyond this point, but the approach used is extendible to them. Large classes of diagrams contributing to an expectation value can be summed by means of integral equations. The development of single chain, hypernetted chain, and Fermi hypernetted chain (FHNC) equations for central correlations is reviewed. The chain summation methods are extended to sum single operator chains (SOC) for the non-central operators. Methods are also given for treating the leading commutator corrections in the expansi0n by simple vertex factors. The energy expectation value for potentials with six operators are evaluated using the FHNC/SOC functions, with an exact treatment of the commutators involved. The energy is found to have a minimum with respect to variations in all parameters. Results of calculations with model potentials based on the Reid, Bethe-Johnson, Hamada-Johnston, and Gammel-Thaler potentials are reported. A crude estimate of the effect of the neglected spin-orbit potentials on the nuclear matter binding energy and saturation density indicates that it could be significant. A correct treatment of the spin-orbit potentials is the next major step that should be taken.
We develop a general variational theory for inhomogeneous Fermi systems such as the electron gas in a metal surface, the surface of liquid 3He, or simple models of heavy nuclei. The ground-state wave function is expressed in terms of two-body correlations, a one-body attenuation factor, and a model-system Slater determinant. Massive partial summations of cluster expansions are performed by means of Born-Green-Yvon and hypernetted-chain techniques. An optimal single-particle basis is generated by a generalized Hartree-Fock equation in which the two-body correlations screen the bare interparticle interaction. The optimization of the pair correlations leads to a state-averaged random-phase-approximation equation and a strictly microscopic determination of the particle-hole interaction.
Abstract The main task of microscopic many-body theory is to provide an understanding and an explanation of properties of macroscopic systems from no other information than the properties of the underlying Hamiltonian, the particle statistics, and the macroscopic geometry of the system. Variational wave functions have been a very successful technique for examining the ground state and dynamic properties of dense quantum fluids. Specifically the “optimized (Fermi)-hypernetted chain” ((F)HNC-EL) hierarchy of approximations reproduces, for simple interactions like electrons and quantum fluids, the most basic features of a self-bound many-body system, namely binding, saturation, and spinodal decomposition. The relationships between Green’s functions based perturbation theory and variational wave functions have been clarified in much detail in the past. In the language of Feynman diagrams, a self-consistent summation of ring- and ladder-diagrams is the minimum requirement for a satisfactory microscopic description of these basic features. Realistic nucleon–nucleon interactions pose further problems: The most difficult aspect of the nuclear many-body problem is caused by the form of the microscopic nucleon–nucleon interaction which depends at least on the spin, isospin, the relative orientation and angular momentum of the interacting particles. Simple variational methods as used for electrons and quantum fluids are inadequate. Correlation functions that have the same structure as the interactions lead to so-called “commutator diagrams” that have, so far, been mostly neglected. We have shown in the past that these corrections can be very important if the two-body interactions are very different in different spin- or isospin channels. To deal with the problem of realistic nuclear interactions we have combined techniques of the Jastrow–Feenberg variational method and the local parquet-diagram theory. In the language of diagrammatic perturbation theory, “commutator diagrams” can be identified with non-parquet diagrams. We examine the physical processes described by these terms and include the relevant diagrams in a way that is suggested by the Jastrow–Feenberg approach. We show that the corrections from non-parquet contributions are, at short distances, larger than all other many-body effects. We examine here neutron matter as a prototype of systems with state-dependent interactions. Calculations are carried out for neutrons interacting via the so-called v8 v 8 version of four popular interactions. We determine the structure and effective interactions and apply the method to the calculation of the energetics, structure and dynamic properties such as the single-particle self-energy and the dynamic response functions as well as BCS pairing in both singlet and triplet states. We find that many-body correlations lead to a strong reduction of the spin-orbit interaction, and, therefore, to a suppression of the 3P2 3 P 2 and 3P2 3 P 2 - 3F2 3 F 2 gaps. We also find pairing in 3P0 3 P 0 states; the strength of the pairing gap depends sensitively on the potential model employed.
We develop a variational theory for the determination of the ground-state properties of an inhomogeneous Bose fluid at zero temperature. Euler-Lagrange equations are derived for the one- and two-body correlations, and systematic approximation methods are physically motivated. It is shown that the optimized variational method provides a self-consistent approximate summation of ladder and ring diagrams. Numerical applications are presented for the density profile, distribution functions, energy, and chemical potential of films of 4He atoms. Both the bulk and surface energies are calculated and found to be in fair agreement with experiments.
Variational calculations of the ground-state energy of hard-sphere, helium-4, Coulomb, and nuclear Yukawa fluids are carried out. The long-range part v(r>d) and a constant part $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ at r<d of the bare interaction are assumed to contribute to the average field. The correlation function f(r) is obtained by minimizing the two-body cluster contribution due to the remainder interaction, and the distance d is determined by minimizing the energy as calculated with the hierarchy of hypernetted-chain-type equations. The convergence of two- and three-particle distribution functions given by these equations is discussed. The method is shown to be exact in the low-density limit, and the comparison of the present results with the available exact (standard) results in the high-density limit (region) verifies its accuracy over the entire density range. It is shown that the variationally obtained value of d in the high-density Coulomb fluid can be understood with conventional meanfield theory. A solidification criterion is obtained by studying the energies in liquid and solid phases with the present f(r). This criterion explains the solidification of the Coulomb, hard-sphere, and helium systems, and the inability of the nuclear Yukawa system to solidify. The variational method in the form presented here could be very useful for studying complicated quantum systems.