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Configuration interaction approach to the few-body problem in a two-dimensional harmonic trap with contact interaction

Massimo Rontani, Sarah Reimann

Published Oct 23, 2008• 3 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The configuration interaction (CI) method for calculating the exact eigenstates of a quantum-mechanical few-body system is problematic when applied to contact interactions between the particles. In two and three dimensions, the approach fails due to the pathology of the Dirac delta-potential, making it impossible to reach convergence by gradually increasing the size of the Hilbert space. However, for practical applications this problem may be cured in a rather simple manner, by renormalizing the STRENGTH of the contact potential, which must be diagonalized in a TRUNCATED Hilbert space. The procedure relies on the comparison of CI energies and wave functions with those obtained by the exact solution of the two-body Schrodinger equation for the regularized contact interaction. The rather simple scheme, while keeping the numerical procedures still elementary, nevertheless provides both cut-off-independent few-body physical observables and an estimate of the error of the CI calculation.

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The configuration interaction (CI) method for calculating the exact eigenstates of a quantum-mechanical few-body system is problematic when applied to contact interactions between the particles. In two and three dimensions, the approach fails due to the pathology of the Dirac delta-potential, making it impossible to reach convergence by gradually increasing the size of the Hilbert space. However, for practical applications this problem may be cured in a rather simple manner, by renormalizing the STRENGTH of the contact potential, which must be diagonalized in a TRUNCATED Hilbert space. The procedure relies on the comparison of CI energies and wave functions with those obtained by the exact solution of the two-body Schrodinger equation for the regularized contact interaction. The rather simple scheme, while keeping the numerical procedures still elementary, nevertheless provides both cut-off-independent few-body physical observables and an estimate of the error of the CI calculation.
Abstract The configuration interaction (CI) method for calculating the exact eigenstates of a quantum-mechanical few-body system is problematic when applied to particles interacting through contact forces. In dimensions higher than one the approach fails due to the pathology of the Dirac δ -potential, making it impossible to reach convergence by gradually increasing the size of the Hilbert space. However, this problem may be cured in a rather simple manner by renormalizing the strength of the contact potential when diagonalizing in a truncated Hilbert space. One hereby relies on the comparison of the CI results to the two-body ground-state energy obtained by the exact solution of the Schrödinger equation for a regularized contact interaction. We discuss here a scheme that provides cutoff-independent few-body physical observables. The method is applied to a few-body system of ultracold atoms confined by a two-dimensional harmonic oscillator.
We employ ab initio methods of quantum chemistry to investigate spin-1/2 fermions interacting via a two-body contact potential in a one-dimensional harmonic trap. The convergence of the total energy with the size of the one-particle basis set is analytically investigated for the two-body problem and the same form of the convergence formula is numerically confirmed to be valid for the many-body case. Benchmark calculations for two to six fermions with the full configuration interaction method equivalent to the exact diagonalization approach, and the coupled cluster (CC) method including single, double, triple, and quadruple excitations are presented. The convergence of the correlation energy with the level of excitations included in the CC model is analyzed. The range of the interaction strength for which single-reference CC methods work is examined. Next, the CC method restricted to single, double, and noniterative triple excitations, CCSD(T), is employed to study a two-component Fermi gas composed of 6–80 atoms in a one-dimensional harmonic trap. The density profiles of trapped atomic clouds are also reported. Finally, a comparison with experimental results for few-fermion systems is presented. Upcoming possible applications and extensions of the presented approach are discussed.
A new operator approach to the solution of the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation for few-body quantum systems with pair-wise interaction is presented. The problem is solved on the basis of the sequential account of configurations (SAC) method proposed. The wave-function of a few-body system determined with allowance for the configuration interaction (CI-wavefunction) is expressed in terms of the one-configuration wavefunctions with use of the configuration mixing operator (±) introduced in the paper. The examination is carried out with an example of a few-electron atomic system. An analytical expression for the (±) -operator has been represented and an integral equation for the CI-wavefunction has been obtained. It is shown that: (I) the correlation interaction inside an isolated configuration does not destroy the independent particle approximation; (ii) in the framework of the present approach the self-action is excluded. The present approach has enabled to receive an analytical expression for the (±) -operator without applying the non-physical procedure of 'switching-on' the interconfiguration interaction.
We obtain for the attractive Dirac δ-function potential in two-dimensional quantum mechanics a renormalized formulation that avoids reference to a cutoff and running coupling constant. Dimensional transmutation is carried out before attempting to solve the system, and leads to an interesting eigenvalue problem in N−2 degrees of freedom (in the center of momentum frame) when there are N particles. The effective Hamiltonian for N−2 particles has a nonlocal attractive interaction, and the Schrodinger equation becomes an eigenvalue problem for the logarithm of this Hamiltonian. The three-body case is examined in detail, and in this case a variational estimate of the ground-state energy is given.
We apply the configuration-interaction method to calculate the spectra of two-component Fermi systems in a harmonic trap, studying the convergence of energies at the unitary interaction limit. We find that for a fixed regularization of the two-body interaction the convergence is exponential or better in the truncation parameter of the many-body space. However, the conventional regularization is found to have poor convergence in the regularization parameter, with an error that scales as a low negative power of this parameter. We propose a new regularization of the two-body interaction that produces exponential convergence for systems of three and four particles. We estimate the ground-state energy of the four-particle system to be (5.045 +/- 0.003) variant Planck's constant over 2 pi omega.