The variational method for calculating energy of quantum fluids, and its applications to the Bose liquid 4He, Fermi neutron gas, and liquid 3He are discussed. The correlation functions are parameterized by their healing distance, and can depend on the states occupied by the correlated particles in the model wave function. They are calculated by constrained variation of lowest order contributions. The healing distance has a prescribed value in lowest order calculations, whereas it is sufficiently large in hopefully exact energy calculations. The direct many-body cluster diagrams are summed with successive approximations of an integral equation. The contribution of exchange diagrams is shown to decrease rapidly with the number of exchanges, and their sums are truncated after the energy has converged to within a few percent.
The variational method for calculating energy of quantum fluids, and its applications to the Bose liquid 4He, Fermi neutron gas, and liquid 3He are discussed. The correlation functions are parameterized by their healing distance, and can depend on the states occupied by the correlated particles in the model wave function. They are calculated by constrained variation of lowest order contributions. The healing distance has a prescribed value in lowest order calculations, whereas it is sufficiently large in hopefully exact energy calculations. The direct many-body cluster diagrams are summed with successive approximations of an integral equation. The contribution of exchange diagrams is shown to decrease rapidly with the number of exchanges, and their sums are truncated after the energy has converged to within a few percent.
The variational method for calculating energy of quantum fluids, and its applications to the Bose liquid 4He, Fermi neutron gas, and liquid 3He are discussed. The correlation functions are parametrized by their healing distance, and can depend on the states occupied by the correlated particles in the model wave function. They are calculated by constrained variation of the lowest-order contributions. The healing distance has a prescribed value in lowest-order calculations, whereas it is sufficiently large in hopefully exact energy calculations. The many-body cluster contributions in Bose fluids are summed with successive approximations of an integral equation due to van Leeuwen et al. A simple diagrammatic cluster expansion is presented for Fermi liquids, and its direct diagrams are summed with the integral equation. The contribution of exchange diagrams is shown to decrease rapidly with the number of exchanges, and their sums are truncated after the energy has converged to within a few percent.
"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."
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.
A beginning is made towards determining the energy of dense and strongly interacting quantum liquids at 0 \ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K, starting all the way from the interparticle potential. Liquids He3 and He4 as well as neutron-star interiors approximate such a system. Since expansions do not converge either in powers of the interaction nor in the density, n-body clusters have to be calculated for all n and to all orders in the potential. Working within a simplified model, a method is suggested for estimating n-body contributions to the binding energy. The method is far simpler than more-direct methods thus far employed, which can be used only for low values of n. The method is verified and illustrated by comparison with these existing calculations of two-, three-, and four-body energies. A discussion is also given of the steps remaining to be taken from where this paper leaves off. Possible "pairing" and "super" properties are outside the scope of this paper.
Dilute Fermi systems with large s-wave scattering length as exhibit universal properties if the interparticle spacing r0 greatly exceeds the range of the underlying two-body interaction potential. In this regime, r0 is the only relevant length scale and observables such as the energy per particle depend only on r0 (or, equivalently, the energy EFG of the free Fermi gas). This paper investigates Bose and Fermi systems with nonvanishing angular momentum l using the lowest order constrained variational method. We focus on the regime where the generalized scattering length becomes large and determine the relevant length scales. For Bose gases with large generalized scattering lengths, we obtain simple expressions for the energy per particle in terms of an l-dependent length scale ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{l}$, which depends on the range of the underlying two-body potential and the average interparticle spacing. We discuss possible implications for dilute two-component Fermi systems with finite l. Furthermore, we determine the equation of state of liquid and gaseous bosonic helium.
Abstract A modification of the Rayleigh—Ritz variational principle is described which makes possible a calculation of the energy, wave function, and pair distribution function f12≡f(x1,x2) of a Bose fluid, such as liquid 4He, at absolute zero. The assumptions made are: (i) two-body interactions with potential Uij, (ii) trial wave functions of the form f12≡f(x1,x2) and (iii) the Kirkwood ‘superposition' approximation. Under these approximations, the expectation energy is E=12n2∫∫d3X1d3X2f12U12−h2m−1(∇18ϕ12)+(∇1ϕ12)2+n∫d3X2f13f23ϕ12⋅∇1ϕ13, where n ≡ N/V. It is shown here that making E stationary with respect to independent variations in f and ɸ corresponds to simultaneously applying the ordinary Rayleigh-Ritz principle and solving the Born-Green-Yvon integral equation for f. The method is illustrated by reproducing Bogolyubov’s results for the case where U is small. The case where U is large must be dealt with numerically, but transformations for simplifying the computations are given here.