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Civil War Book Review

A Variational Calculation of the Polaron Self-Energy and Effective Mass.

Benjamin U. Stewart

Published Jan 1, 1971• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An approximate calculation is made of the polaron self-energy and effective mass as defined by Frohlich.The approach taken is a variational one based on an ex tended version of Hohler's ansatz in which the trial state function employed is an exact eigenfunction of the total wave vector of the polaron.The effective mass obtained simulates the Feynmann-Schultz result while the corresponding polaron self-energy is fairly accurate but inferior to the result of Feynman and Schultz.CONTENTS Chapters « -« T -| > £ ( l ^' (1'2) n in which n is the optical refractive index, k is the static dielectric constant, e is the electronic charge and 2 t\& is Plank's constant.The limit S->°° is to be taken with lim I = -~ S-*oo v 8tt d 3v .(1,3) A natural unit system is employed in which 2^=o)=2m=l.The first term in the Hamiltonian is the quantum mechanical operator corresponding to the kinetic energy of the electron.The second term represents the energy of the polarization field resulting from the long wave length longitudinal optical crystal modes in the absence of interaction with the electron.The last term represents the energy of interaction between the electron and the phonons.The name "polaron" has been given to the entity consisting of the Bloch conduction electron together with its accompanying nonradiative polarization field.Accordingly Frohlich defines the polaron self-energy, EQ (a), and the (ground-state) polaron effective mass, y(a), by the expansion EQ (a,ic) = Ec (a) + k 2/y(a) + 0(k4 ), (1,4)

DOI
10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.1953

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The Fr\"ohlich polaron confined to move in one space dimension and interacting with a three-dimensional lattice is studied. We calculate exact and approximate results for the ground-state energy and the effective mass. The following exact results were obtained. In (a) the weak-coupling limit for the energy E=-\ensuremath{\alpha}'-[(3/2 \ensuremath{\surd}2 )-1]\ensuremath{\alpha}' $^{2}$, the mass ${\mathit{m}}^{\mathrm{*}}$/${\mathit{m}}_{\mathit{b}}$=1/2\ensuremath{\alpha}'+[(5/2 \ensuremath{\surd}2 )-1]/4, and the average number of virtual phonons N=1/2\ensuremath{\alpha}'+[(3/ \ensuremath{\surd}2 )-2]\ensuremath{\alpha}' $^{2}$, and in (b) the strong-coupling limit E=-0.333 088\ensuremath{\alpha}' $^{2}$,${\mathit{m}}^{\mathrm{*}}$/${\mathit{m}}_{\mathit{b}}$=2.1254\ensuremath{\alpha}' $^{4}$, and N=0.666 176\ensuremath{\alpha}' $^{2}$. Here, \ensuremath{\alpha}' is the normalized electron-phonon coupling constant, which was chosen such that E=-\ensuremath{\alpha}' within second-order perturbation theory.

Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Feb 15, 1991•28 citations
An approximate calculation is made of the polaron self-energy and effective mass as defined by Frohlich.The approach taken is a variational one based on an ex tended version of Hohler's ansatz in which the trial state function employed is an exact eigenfunction of the total wave vector of the polaron.The effective mass obtained simulates the Feynmann-Schultz result while the corresponding polaron self-energy is fairly accurate but inferior to the result of Feynman and Schultz.CONTENTS Chapters « -« T -| > £ ( l ^' (1'2) n in which n is the optical refractive index, k is the static dielectric constant, e is the electronic charge and 2 t& is Plank's constant.The limit S->°° is to be taken with lim I = -~ S-*oo v 8tt d 3v .(1,3) A natural unit system is employed in which 2^=o)=2m=l.The first term in the Hamiltonian is the quantum mechanical operator corresponding to the kinetic energy of the electron.The second term represents the energy of the polarization field resulting from the long wave length longitudinal optical crystal modes in the absence of interaction with the electron.The last term represents the energy of interaction between the electron and the phonons.The name "polaron" has been given to the entity consisting of the Bloch conduction electron together with its accompanying nonradiative polarization field.Accordingly Frohlich defines the polaron self-energy, EQ (a), and the (ground-state) polaron effective mass, y(a), by the expansion EQ (a,ic) = Ec (a) + k 2/y(a) + 0(k4 ), (1,4)
In the expansion of the ground-state energy of a polaron in a weak magnetic field, the zeroth-order term is the polaron self-energy, while the first-order term is inversely proportional to the polaron effective mass. The effective mass so obtained is exactly equivalent to the freepolaron effective mass as defined by Fr\"ohlich. This equivalence principle is used to approximate the polaron effective mass by employing an approximate expression for the ground-state energy of a polaron in a weak magnetic field obtained by applying Feynman's path-integral variational method. The resultant polaron effective mass is found to be higher than Feynman's result by less than 1%.
It is well known that two qualitatively different pictures arise in the description of the motion of an electron in an ionic crystal. In the first case, when the electron interacts weakly with the ionic lattice of the crystal, its motion is the same as the motion of a free band electron whose energy is shifted downward with respect to the bottom of the conduction band, and the effective mass is replaced by the renormalized mass (weak-coupling polaron). In the other limiting case, when the electron interacts strongly with the ionic crystal, an entire series of different self-consistent states of the electron and lattice, each of which has its own effective mass and radius (strong-coupling polaron), arises. Although the motion of an electron in an ionic crystal is described in both limiting cases with the help of the Pekar-Frohlich Hamiltonian, each case requires its own special methods of analysis. Thus, for example, in the strong-coupling theory a special form of adiabatic perturbation theory has been developed in which the trans-lational degeneracy is removed before the perturbation expansion is made. It has been possible to relate both descriptions within the framework of Feynman's varia-tional approach, in which a smooth upper bound was obtained for the energy of the ground state of the polaron for all values of the electron-phonon coupling constant a (see Fig. 1). We call attention in this connection to Ref. 6, where the thermodynamic properties are calculated with the help of a special method for performing the calculations and for finding averages of T-products. The approach developed there is more convenient for performing specific calculations than is the use of path integrals. It seems to us that it has definite advantages in the construction of general proofs concerning the choice of the approximating Hamiltonians (this is illustrated in Ref. 6 for the example of the linear Bogolyubov model), in the investigation of the characteristics of the behavior of a polaron in external fields, etc.
A refined approach where the wave function is gradually improved is developed in the one-dimensional (1D) large-Frohlich-polaron problem. The results for the ground-state energy, the effective mass, and the average number of virtual phonons are obtained for a wide range of the coupling constant It, and are in agreement with those of the Feynman path-integral formalism. In addition, in the weak-coupling limit, the expansions of these observables in powers of the coupling constant are exactly calculated up to the alpha 3 -term. They are E=- alpha -0.06066 alpha 2 -0.00844 alpha 3 , m*=1+0.5 alpha +0.19194 alpha 2 +0.06912 alpha 3 , and N=0.5 alpha +0.12132 alpha 2 +0.029540 alpha 3 , which agree with the known results of the fourth-order perturbation theory.
After deriving the quantum mechanical model polaron Hamiltonian, Frohlich, Pelzar and Zineau presented a perturbative solution to the problem. This chapter examines the perturbation theory from Frohlich et al. and presents other important weak and intermediate coupling polaron theories. It discusses several polaronic properties like average number of virtual phonons in the polaron cloud, electron life-time, lattice polarization potential using the first-order perturbative wave function and obtained the polaron energy and the polaron mass using the second-order Rayleigh-Schrodinger perturbation theory (RSPT). The second-order RSPT is known to have a limited range of validity. In the one-phonon Tamm-Dancoff approximation, the exact ground state energy appears in the denominator instead of the unperturbed energy that appears in RSPT. The chapter also discusses the work of Lee and Pines who have used the Tomonaga's approximation made in the formulation of the meson-theoretic problem to the case of polaron.
The Fr\"ohlich polaron confined to move in one space dimension and interacting with a three-dimensional lattice is studied. We calculate exact and approximate results for the ground-state energy and the effective mass. The following exact results were obtained. In (a) the weak-coupling limit for the energy E=-\ensuremath{\alpha}'-[(3/2 \ensuremath{\surd}2 )-1]\ensuremath{\alpha}' 2^{2}2, the mass m∗{\mathit{m}}^{\mathrm{*}}m∗/mb{\mathit{m}}_{\mathit{b}}mb​=1/2\ensuremath{\alpha}'+[(5/2 \ensuremath{\surd}2 )-1]/4, and the average number of virtual phonons N=1/2\ensuremath{\alpha}'+[(3/ \ensuremath{\surd}2 )-2]\ensuremath{\alpha}' 2^{2}2, and in (b) the strong-coupling limit E=-0.333 088\ensuremath{\alpha}' 2^{2}2,m∗{\mathit{m}}^{\mathrm{*}}m∗/mb{\mathit{m}}_{\mathit{b}}mb​=2.1254\ensuremath{\alpha}' 4^{4}4, and N=0.666 176\ensuremath{\alpha}' 2^{2}2. Here, \ensuremath{\alpha}' is the normalized electron-phonon coupling constant, which was chosen such that E=-\ensuremath{\alpha}' within second-order perturbation theory.